Leo B

In Oppenheimer Nolan provides a typically large scale film experience that attempts to cover a long narrative, deal with some difficult moral questions and represent a complex and developing character. It’s a lot to pack in, even if you give yourself three hours. Unfortunately Nolan fails. There’s an attempt to give the story, which stretches over three decades, flow and continuity with an incessant and insistent percussive soundtrack. This I found irritating and distracting. There was an irony that a film which had as one of its themes the possibility of an endless chain reaction actually lacked a coherent linking of its own narrative. Performances by Murphy, Blunt, Downey jr and Damon were good but not great.