Six Minutes to Midnight is a damn good spy film and an OK boarding school movie. Its success lies primarily in its ability to toggle between different genres and play with our expectations about literally every character we see on screen. Izzard’s role as a spy-turned-English teacher at a German-speaking school is the definition of niche role, which he’s carved out for himself by co-writing the screenplay. The role of fast-talking, smooth spy fits Izzard well, as someone I was really only familiar with as fast-talking, smooth comedian. The concept is novel, girls at a joint British-German school have been living abroad in the midst of the lead up to the Second World War, when the British decide they need to secure them as bargaining chips, just as the Nazis attempt to recall them. In terms of the stories that have been told, not the highest stakes, but at the same time, it gives us some time to reflect on these weird moments of bi-nationality, of being two things at the same time, of values beyond patriotism, that transcend national borders during a time when we are also being challenged to think more about multicultural ties in the midst of the greatest human migration since WWII. The action sequences are not quite slapstick, but there are enough moments of (very) dry physical humor that it almost feels like Izzard is taking his cues from Rowan Atkinson. Probably the most weirdly written character is the school marm played by Dame Judy, who seems to have internalized some wrong-headed notions about what it means and doesn’t mean to be a good German. She’s all for listening to Adolf Hitler rile up the crowds, but apparently her German isn’t good enough for her to hear him denigrate the gays and the Jews and the Poles. Her selective hearing aside, she has some–I was going to try to give her a bit of a compliment sandwich, but honestly no, that marm is kind of a mess and she ought to go and inspect where she got the idea that she could do the Nazi salute and also be shocked SHOCKED when her second in command teaches the girls about anti-semitism. Unlikeliest of casting decisions and it kinda works.
