Film
Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton – Inside No. 9, Byzantium) used to work as a secretary. Now with the second world war in full swing, she becomes a newly appointed scriptwriter for propaganda films created by the British War Office, Film Divisions. She joins the cast and crew of a major production at the time the Blitz rages around them. Having to deal both with her relationship at home, the male dominated workplace, and a very self-centre leading man, Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy – I, Frankenstein).
Their finest deals with life back home, away from the war. Yet, in London, the city was not left unscathed. The fear and emotion, but drive to continue as much as possible with everyday life is depicted in the many colourful characters in the film.
A fine telling of a team doing their best to uplift the spirits of the populace of Britain, inviting us into their lives to give a brief glimpse of what was. Nighy excels at his role, so much so that you are not sure whether to loath or applaud the character. While Arterton playing opposite endears herself to one, immediately claiming support.
The film is an engrossing telling of a story of love, war, and passion. With some remarkable settings, and enough humour to make one feel as if one was perhaps just a little British too.
Their Finest if an enjoyable film, with a simple message to tell, one of group effort, and pushing through. As the story unfolds, and the characters develop, the viewer is taken on a meandering ride. This is certainly one war film, low on action, but big on heart.
Disc
Overall, the disc is of a good technical quality, with an enjoyable film as the main feature.
Their Finest is available now, to purchase on disc, in South Africa.
Video
Video is encoded at a high average bitrate, with no visible artefacts on screen. There is no visible colour bleed, and detail is maintained to a good degree in darker scenes.
With an aspect ration of 2.40:1, even on 16:9 screens, there is some letterboxing, but this does not detract from the film itself.
Viewers with the relevant hardware or software could scale up to a larger, or higher resolution screen, should they wish.
Audio
Audio is presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, with a 2.0 stereo downmix option. Dialogue is clear via the centre speaker, with the weight of the soundtrack carried via the front channels. This is understandable, given the nature and genre of the main feature.
Use of the surround channels server to expand the on-screen world, helping to further draw the viewer into the story, but don’t expect a great amount of discrete effects or use.
Navigation
Navigation is simple, and easy to use. The main menu has a static background, with accompanying music. There are text selections to play the main feature, and items for chapter selection and audio selection that allow access to sub-menus.
The chapter selection menu has four large, colour, still thumbnails per sub-menu, for a total of twelve chapters. While these are numbered, they are not labelled, and navigation to a specific part of the main feature would still include some guesswork.
The audio selection sub-menu has text links to select between the 5.1 surround audio track, and the 2.0 stereo downmix.
Bonus Features
There are no bonus features on the disc, other than trailers for Atomic Blonde, First Kill, and the game PES 2018.
These autoplay at the beginning of the disc, and can be individually skipped, or fast-forwarded. They can not, however, be accessed again from the discs menu system.
