Pressure review – another war movie for the…

There is a specific kind of historical media in the western world that can be categorised as the thing your teacher puts on to entertain their class during the final week of school. A war movie that just so happens to skimp on graphic violence while retaining enough realism to warrant an educational excuse. Enter Pressure, a dramatic re-enactment of the insider discourse surrounding the decision to launch the invasion known as D‑Day despite inclement weather.

While boasting a commanding performance from Brendan Fraser as US Army general and future president Dwight D Eisenhower, the concept of mythologising the meteorologists on the Allies’ side of World War Two raises the question of whether this time period as cinematic inspiration has finally run its course. Pressure is the second feature film from director Anthony Maras, whose previous effort, Hotel Mumbai, is a well-intentioned true-story action thriller that ultimately proved to be an exhausting, melodramatic affair. To put it bluntly, Pressure has immense pressure to prove itself as more than another Wikipedia page turned into a movie.

The narrative centers on James Stagg (Andrew Scott), a Scottish meteorologist who’s hired to predict the weather for an upcoming invasion at a Normandy beach. Stagg teams up with loudmouth American Irving P Krick (Chris Messina) and eventually splits from him over the forecasting results. Eisenhower is caught between the whirlwind of these two egos, and the three men debating over this life-or-death decision make up the core conflict in Pressure.

This electric male-diva clash may not reach the heights of the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross, but Messina’s Long Island-bred boisterous nature rivals the acting bite that put fellow LI-er Alec Baldwin on the map. Messina is halfway through an impressive decade, beginning with Birds of Prey and leading into Clint Eastwood’s excellent Juror #2 – it’s only natural that someone with such a charismatic portfolio would introduce his character with an erratic bar-piano performance. Not only does such an introduction accentuate his personality as antithetical to strait-laced Stagg, but it also provides a necessary thunderous moment in a relatively lethargic first half.

In fact, Pressure​’s biggest fault lies in its overtly clinical nature, evident in its commitment to faithfully reflect its stage-production origins. Such a lack of dedication to formal boldness results in a heightened focus on the performances. Messina, Scott and Fraser all argue, shout, jest and proclaim with tremendous power that’s compelling enough that you almost forget you are watching a war movie with more verbal attacks than actual warfare. Even the long-promised D‑Day sequence is interspersed with Eisenhower’s stern speech broadcast over the radio. Fraser, however, sells this sentimental martial rhetoric, leading a picture that will surely become a streaming go-to. Whether the public consensus will still remember these performances come Oscar season is a whole other calculation. As long as the weather does’t get in the way.