De Gaulle: Resistance: Lizten verry carefully, I vil say zis only once!
This is the first in a two-part tale of this biographical drama, each part running for nearly three hours – with the first out now, and the second following in the UK on September 18th.
It’s World War II in 1940, and the Nazis are taking French towns here and there, with a determined young lad, Fernand (Florian Lesieur), starting up a movement against the enemy, putting letters through doors labelled, “A people is deserted only if it admits defeat”, alongside Livia (Anamaria Vartolomei – Mickey 17), a comely lass of virtue true.
Unappreciated in his own country, an older man – but no less determined – Charles de Gaulle (Simon Abkarian – Casino Royale) heads over to London to report from the BBC, wanting to make a pact with the Germans, as of June 18th 1940. Unfortunately, thanks to his own Prime Minister, Philippe Pétain, de Gaulle has been stripped of his nationality, and in his absence, a court martial has sentenced him to death!
Meanwhile, in one of the best performances of Winston Churchill I’ve seen on film, Simon Russell Beale (The Magic Faraway Tree) is brilliant as one of the few who wants to give DG a chance, even though most of the British authorities don’t like him.
As a resistance forms in London, plumber Blazej (Karim Leklou) gets involved, when he turns up to fix a sink, but DG mistakes him for someone less accustomed to fiddling with pipes, assuming he wants to join his movement and sits him down at a desk with a telephone, making that young man part of the humour in this film.
And on that note, I like that this film had quite a few surprising laughs in the first act, but then once it had to get into more of the actual plot – such as DG sending men to Chad and Cameroon in a very detailed operation, the comedy stylngs all fell by the wayside and made the rest of it a bit of a slog.
Still, I did get a laugh when the ‘Allo! ‘Allo! memories continued, as a M. Leclerc wants to join the resistance, and I didn’t realise he was real! I always wondered what that guy was going on about in the sitcom.
Still, now I’ve seen Part 1, I’ll have to see Part 2, although as each part runs for approximately 2 hours 40 minutes, it does feel more like a mini-series than a film.
NOTE: There are no mid- nor post-credit scenes, but this film does end at a definitive point which will lead into the second movie.
De Gaulle: Resistance is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 160 minutes
Release date: August 28th 2026
Studio: Pathe
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Rating: 7/10
Director: Antonin Baudry
Producers: Jérôme Seydoux, Axelle Boucaï, Ardavan Safaee
Writers: Antonin Baudry, Bérénice Vila
Novel: Julian T Jackson (A Certain Idea of France)
Music: Volker Bertelmann
Cast:
Charles de Gaulle: Simon Abkarian
Winston Churchill: Simon Russell Beale
Fernand: Florian Lesieur
Général Pierre Koenig: Benoît Magimel
René Pleven: Loïc Corbery
Livia: Anamaria Vartolomei
Général Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque: Niels Schneider
Blazej: Karim Leklou
Eden: Tom Mison
Courcel: Kacey Mottet Klein
D’Argenlieu: Grégoire Colin
Passy: Pablo Cobo
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Campbell Scott
Amiral François Darlan: Mathieu Kassovitz
Dwight Eisenhower: Daniel Betts
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.