Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Eddie Izzard, Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, James D’Arcy, David Schofield, Carla Juri, Kevin Eldon, Nigel Lindsay, Rupert Holliday-Evans, Bianca Nawrath, Maria Dragus, Celyn Jones, Tijan Marei, Franziska Brandmeier, Joe Bone, Richard Elfyn, Nicole Kelleher, Maud Druine, Andrew Byron, Luisa-Celine Gaffron, Juliet Hartley, Toby Hadoke.

We like to think children and teenagers have become more sophisticated and more adapt in understanding how the world works, that in the way they can overcome technology and hold their own in conversation regarding ideas, they, like their adult counterparts, are still as susceptible to falling for the charms of fanaticism of any political persuasion, that the words of rhetoric can just be as much a thrill when spoken with the voice of authority, as the soft coercion holds the beauty of poetry aloft.

It matters not if that fanatical persuasion is from the extreme right or left, if it can urge a young person to hold extreme views before they have found their own truth, to form their own opinion before the wrecking ball of vile fascism or other political zeal, then it must be held to account and ultimately stopped. For in the same way we have politicised children, we have also taken something pure from them, we have stolen the joy and belief in childhood, we have destroyed it in the name of commitment, division, and hate.

In what can be termed as an intimate and closed team affair, with writing credits and direction seemingly spread out between Eddie Izzard, Andy Goddard and Celyn Jones, Six Minutes to Midnight is a British spy thriller which does much to add information on the fall out of war and rhetoric on the influential as it does pay homage to John Buchan’s superb tale of The 39 Steps.

Whilst the tale itself can be seen in the same style as the old Boy’s Own Stories that dominated Christmas’ stockings of the post-war era, it is the dominating scenes in the private girl’s school on the British coast on the eve of war against Nazi Germany, that catch the eye of both the fear of that persuasion and how an ordinary person can be swept up in the thought of euphoric naivety, and that of how Eddie Izzard’s performance, alongside those of Judi Dench and James D’Arcy, frames the point that throughout our life, we truly do not know which side people stand, and that the fight against fanaticism is forever on-going.

Whilst the tale may appear simple, it is at times loaded with insinuation, a sense of the romantic device that urges its audience to remember that a person in a suit is capable of evil, just as much as a soldier carrying a gun, that a woman can just as dedicated to the words of a despicable leader as anyone else. It is that urgency of passion and devotion that we must always protect the impressionable from following blindly without question the cause in which wishes to burn the world. No matter the country of origin, rhetoric and hate must be fought to protect those who become fixated on the type of order which says you cannot question its mantra.

Six Minutes to Midnight is a decent enough film, steady, observational, exacting, it just lacks the sense of final drive to which many of its predecessors have placed before the audience with a finer sense of insight.Ian D. Hall