Hobson's Choice Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by David Lean and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. While watching this movie, it’s hard to imagine that David Lean would deliver ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’, his first great epic, only 3 years later, and, to be honest, I’m rather surprised that this movie turned out to be a box-office success when it was released in Great Britain. It’s not that it was bad, in fact, it was pretty neat to see such a great master like David Lean doing a comedy for the first time in his career, it’s just that I was never really impressed or dazzled by this movie. The main issue I had was that the whole thing felt rather disjointed. Indeed, who was actually the main character? The other thing that bothered me was the fact that they pushed their portrait of William Mossop too far my making him such a bumbling idiot. Sure, it was supposed to be funny, I get that, but, as far as I was concerned, it was rather odd that a bright and beautiful woman like Maggie Hobson would be interested in a guy who was almost retarded. At least, there is no doubt that I was once again seriously impressed by Charles Laughton who has definitely become one of my favorite actors, no less than that. Indeed, there was absolutely no redeeming qualities regarding this character and there was nothing really interesting about this guy either and, yet, Laughton managed to make him quite entertaining to behold, it was just quite masterful. Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn’t really care about this flick, I have to admit that it was still a decent comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in David Lean’s work.