The Duke

Director: Roger Michell
Year Released: 2020
Rating: 3.0

Bus driver (and amateur playwright!) Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) - who would agree with Slowthai that there's "nothing great about Britain" - decides, with the assistance of his son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead), to steal Francisco Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London to protest the government forcing people to pay for "television licenses."  It's hard to say no to a lively movie about a spirited idealist - and anti-authoritarian - figure who sticks up for the Little Guy and believes fully in the Rights of the People: sure, it's laid on a bit thick and maybe a little too saccharine (naturally, it ends with a comedic courtroom scene), but the acting prowess of both Broadbent and the great Helen Mirren (as his long-suffering wife) keep it light and fun (plus, Matthew Goode pops up later on as good-natured barrister Jeremy Hutchinson).  God bless our noble kooks, may they continuously cause headaches the whole world through.