Cromwell

SYNOPSIS

Richard Harris's aggressive warts-and-all Oliver Cromwell and Alec Guinness's unyielding Charles I make this historical double act very watchable. They bring past politics to vivid life and put paid to the idea that right and grace were on the side of royalist Cavaliers as opposed to the Puritan Roundheads. The usually undervalued writer/director Ken Hughes was given an enormous budget for a British film at the time, and the result is a long-winded but compelling epic with some mightily well-staged battles and two powerhouse performances from the two leads.