[3.9/10] *Cromwell* managed something remarkable. It made me root against the person I admire in real life and sympathize with the one who I’m skeptical of in real life. That would be impressive, except for the fact that the movie wanted to lionize the former and undermine the latter. This film aims to, ironically, put its title character on a pedestal, and only makes him seem like a constantly-yelling asshole in the process.

I appreciate the real Oliver Cromwell. He was committed to a functioning government and a balance of power, a capable military leader, and a pious man who nonetheless supported religious tolerance. That's not to say everything he did was admirable, but there are at least laudable aspects of the man that could be highlighted in a biopic that doubles as hagiography.

But the “simple country gentleman” in *Cromwell* is a raging prick, who speaks entirely in shouts and condescending remonstrances. He is a cold, bitter man, with no tolerance for either his erstwhile allies or enemies. He holds beliefs the real man didn’t, about democracy and other concepts meant to appeal to more modern audiences but which feel out of place given the real contours of the conflict. And he is constantly imposing his will on anyone and everyone in his way, whether it’s the best idea or not.

The real King Charles I, by contrast, was a decent man but an inveterate bungler. His intransigence and unwillingness to compromise prolonged and worsened the conflict, and he seemed almost pathologically incapable of taking the wins that were practically handed to him. Not everything he did was wrong, but it’s hard to read about the English Civil War and not shake your head at his countless follies.

But the eventually-beheaded monarch in *Cromwell* is the most sympathetic character in the piece. He seems reluctant about war or challenge and devoted to his duties. He is a loving husband and father. And to the last, he believes in the duty of his office, the love of his country, and the tenets of his faith. He still makes mistakes, but he’s the most tragic and relatable figure in the film.

It’s no surprise, then, that the movie is at its zenith when it focuses on Charles and his plight, and at its nadir when it puts Cromwell front and center. The film can effectively be broken up into four parts: (1.) the prelude to war (2.) a series of battles (3.) the trial and execution of the king, and (4.) the reluctant rise to power of Cromwell.

Part three is by far the most interesting, if only because it foregrounds Alec Guiness’ sterling performance. Almost everything in this movie is too much. Richard Harris barks nearly every line he has. The dialogue finds no point so subtle that it can’t be shouted at the audience. The emotional weight of a scene cannot subsist on performance or story alone, because the melodramatic score has to burst in at every conceivable big moment.

Guinness, on the other hand, is the only subtle or quiet thing in the film. He plays Charles as a man of quiet dignity and grace. The script may make him into a knob, one too easily swayed by a frantic advisor or his cartoonishly malevolent wife. But Guinness makes him sympathetic, adding a warm quality to the man, who loves his family and believes in providence and salvation through to his final moments. He is, ostensibly, the object of the protagonist’s ire, and yet the script and players turn the story’s champion into its villain and the ostensible antagonist into a pitiable creature of utter decency.

Maybe that's part of the problem. *Cromwell* takes incredible liberties with the actual history. That is not a sin in and of itself. But it effectively attributes everything the parliamentary opposition to Charles did to Cromwell, and makes it seem like he more or less won the English Civil War single-handedly and under protest. Aside from a few noble advisors, it attributes every royalist move to the king, turning the whole story into a clash of personalities rather than the multi-causal sweep of the larger forces of history. Flattening causes and effects and the swath of figures like that turns Cromwell into a fiery tyrant and Charles into a deferential man of civility by comparison.

This choice severely weakens the first part of the movie, the one most subject to the movie’s reductive rewriting of history, and the last part of it, which puts the most focus on Cromwell and Harris’ unavailing, endlessly extreme performance.

The second part, focused on the great battles of the war, is a mixed bag. The sheer logistical achievement is impressive. *Cromwell* puts its money on the screen in these showpiece set pieces, with massive numbers of extras and horseman and explosions that try to give the skirmishes the epic scope that only the cinema can provide. Likewise, the large crowd gathered to witness the King’s death confers an extra gravity to the event. You cannot help but be impressed by the scale the film’s able to achieve in recreating these momentous scenes.

But the direction is indifferent. The editing chops up the conflicts to all hell. The soldiers are undifferentiated and easily lost in the tumult. The images are often boring to look at, without the energy or feeling such a blood feud ought to carry. Every once in a while, a strong shot or framing will emerge, but for the most part, the film’s biggest set pieces are an achievement for the logistical teams casting and outfitting and propping the assembled “armies”, but not much of an achievement in terms of the art.

In brief, *Cromwell* is an overextended slog. Its title character is an unlikable jerk who roars and cajoles and browbeats his fellow men into any number of hypocritical moves, when he’s meant to be a crusading hero. His foil, the man meant to represent the enemy of democracy and progress (and [gasp] tolerance for Catholicism), is a much more humanized, sympathetic figure. And the ahistorical retelling of this key episode on English history suffers, rather than soars, at reducing the heart of the conflict to a clash between these two men.

The movie isn’t good history. It’s certainly not good storytelling. And in transforming its erstwhile hero into a perpetually angry dastard, it can’t even do a good job at deifying the man it’s trying so hard to praise.