THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman
In 1917, WW I was going strong in England. Everyone was involved in the war effort. This film's story, probably a myth or legend which was passed on to writer-director Christopher Monger by his grandfather, is about a now non-existent town in Wales, and a couple of Englishman who were sent to survey the terrain for purposes of having accurate map information should the war spread there.
Two men, Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) and George Garrad (Ian MacNeice) are the surveyors. Specifically, there job is to measure the town's most famous attraction, its mountain. When Garrad makes an educated guess before the actual survey begins that it probably is some number of feet short of being a mountain and so is really a hill, the townspeople, a weird lot, are furious and determined it will be a mountain.
The film is a delightful and charming farce. When the two surveyors do the actual measuring they find that, indeed, the mountain is rather a hill, short by fifteen feet. Outrage sweeps the town's folk. What they do, among other things, to keep the mountain designation, includes inviting the beautiful Betty of Cardiff (Tara Fitzgerald) to help persuade the surveyors to stick around while the hill is turned into a mountain.
THE ENGLISHMAN (and the rest of the title which will not fit on any marquee) is one of the better comedies so far this year.
3.5 Bytes
4 Bytes = Superb 3 Bytes = Too good to be missed. 2 Bytes = So so. 1 Byte = Save your money.
Ben Hoffman
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