I quite enjoyed John Boorman's autobiographical film about life during wartime as schoolboy during the London blitz, Hope and Glory, so I was excited to see the sequel, Queen & Country (2014). It turned out to be something of a disappointment. It was a beautifully filmed story-especially the parts on the island on the Thames where the protagonist, Bill (Callum Turner) comes from. It is a coming of age story that largely takes place while Bill is in the Army conscripts where he has several misadventures in bureaucracy and the inflexible military culture as well as those with the opposite sex. There is some intense overacting from his best mate, Percy (Caleb Landry Jones). The superiors at the army base are caricatures as well: David Thewlis as the rule obsessed Bradley, the overtly evil RSM Digby (Brain F. O'Byrne), and the aristocratic Major Cross (Richard E. Grant). It's all a little too on the nose and broadly comical. it seems like a wasted opportunity to me.
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