The Current War (Dir Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, 1h 50m)

Two good things can be said about The Current War, a retelling of the battle between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to be the one to provide the basis for powering the world with electricity. Firstly, that this film has braved its troubled production history, and of course, the chaos of the rightful collapse of the Weinstein Company, to see the light of day. Secondly, that it makes one want to learn more about the subject of the electrification of the world at the end of the 19th century, as well as the remarkable men that Cumberbath, Shannon and Nicholas Hoult (as Serbian inventor, Nikola Tesla) portray, with Hoult being the other saving grace of the film, a figure of infectious optimism and intelligence.

Unfortunately, despite its protracted release, despite Gomez Rejon's attempts to crystallise down what could well be the subject of a lengthy book or series, despite Hoult putting in another performance that holds the film above water for great stretches, The Current War is a surprisingly dull watch, despite a flashy visual style, some great performances, and some genuinely fascinating concepts, scientific and ethical alike being explored, as both sides of the War attempt to find the solution, and to electrify and light the world around them, to bring it out of the dark forever.

The film begins by setting both Edison, by now a lauded but nigh-destitute figure, living by celebrity and government support, and Westinghouse, an oil man whose invention of the safety brake for trains has made him fantastically wealthy. With the film essentially beginning with Edison proving that the electric lightbulb not only works but can light an entire town, so Westingtonhouse attempts to perfect it, pointing out the issues with the Direct Current way that Edison has used, via the more dangerous Alternating Current method. As their competitiveness grows more personal, and the Chicago World Fair at which one of them will essentially be crowned as the person to power the world, so they go to increasing lengths to win, with Westingthouse employing Tesla to design the apparatus that will make the dangerous current safe to generate, power houses and revolutionise the world

For their parts, Cumberbatch and Shannon certainly act and look the part-Cumberbatch's Edison is a workaholic, tirelessly working on an ever increasing number of inventions, even after the death of his wife, and the loss of ground to Westinghouse, yet revealing, as his shifting focus to recording first sound and then film, a surprisingly sentimental side, alongside his awkwardness and continual striving for scientific perfection. Westinghouse, in comparison, is a more nuanced, and fleshed out figure, perhaps because the film has to do more dramatic heavy lifting for the lesser known man, and whilst Edison's adversial quality comes and goes, Westinghouse is portrayed in a uniformly positive light, risking everything alongside his wife, including the life of one of his closest friend, in search of the perfect way to power the world.

This is perfectly encapsulated with their eventual meeting at the end of the film, after several near-misses, where a winner has been picked from the two of them, where, despite being the loser, Edison is still the more famous, more lauded, and as the film's end-credit titles remind us, more remembered individual-Westinghouse may have won the war, but Edison's endless inventing lifts him above the level of other men, and Westinghouse has paid, arguably, a greater price. Entwined with this is the tale and eventual execution of William Kemmler, towards which both Edison and Westinghouse show distaste.

Yet, despite these performances, and of course, Hoult's scene stealing appearance as Tesla, who seems to be the only man of the trio who gets everything he truly wanted, The Current War finds itself too bogged down in cinematic swishiness, from impressively odd camera angles, including a cluttered side shot in many of the factory scenes, to a needlessly messy sense of moving around, and a strange obsession with splitscreen, particularly towards the end of the film-there are a couple of moments when this works to perfection, such as in the electrification of Chicago and in replicating the early film work of Edison

What it fails to do, however, is to hold together what, in places, is a rather thin film-for such an interesting period, and three remarkable men, the film often plods, messily trying to keep sections of the film ticking over where, for lack of a better word, not music is happening, where explanation, for example via recreations of the relevant experiments, could have made things interesting, or one could have got a greater sense of what both Edison and Westinghouse were after-bluntly, it's not as interesting as it could be

Thus, despite some excellent performances, its laborious journey to finally appear on a cinema screen, and covering what, in a more accomplished director's hand is doubtless a fascinating period of history with fascinating men, The Current War is something of a dim light in the gloom, with neither the power or the energy to make it truly interesting.

Rating: Neutral