Britannia Hospital
The Savage Satire From The Director Of If and O Lucky Man
Welcome to Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator and sinister human experiments financed by the Japanese. Can Mick survive one very strange day in these unhealthy halls or is the entire British Empire in critical condition?
Britannia Hospital is the final film in the acclaimed Mick Travis trilogy from director Lindsay Anderson and writer David Sherwin. Alan Bates, Robbie Coltrane, Richard Griffiths, Joan Plowright, Robin Askwith and Mark Hamill lead an eclectic all-star cast in this biting black comedy that also features original music by Alan Price.
Member Reviews
Unsettling - RobBC
Too bitter to be dismissed as mere farce, too blunt to be simple satire, this final installment in Lindsay Anderson’s trilogy on the decline of the British Empire is equal parts sitcom and social diatribe. Like the boarding school in “If...” we once again see a public institution standing in for the country itself. This time around it’s a hospital under siege. As the privileged elite go head to head with unionized labour on the eve of a royal visit, a lone doctor quietly creates a superbeing meant to replace vastly inferior homo sapiens. Absurd, angry, and filled with despair, the film ends with a darkly prophetic monologue and a chilling demonstration of man’s “successor”.Mich Travis is back. - Superdave
School rebel (If...) and coffee salesman (O Lucky Man) Mick Travis is back, this time as a reporter checking out a government funded hospital which is about to receive a Royal visit from the Queen Mother. He encounters vicious hardhat strikers, greedy and unscrupulous union bosses, mad scientist medical caregivers and a hospital administrator (Leonard Rossiter) whose heart is in the right place, but who finds himself having to descend time and again to the brute level of everybody around him. The picture painted of UK society here is grim and mean and there is less of the cheeky fun of O Lucky Man here, making the film more successful as satire but less so as madcap comedy, although that is clearly it is clearly intended as both. Britannia Hospital has its entertaining moments, though, especially with the brilliant chief of surgery (Graham Crowder) who turns out to be clearly insane and when government protocol officials show up to instruct hospital workers on the correct forms of address for the Queen Mum and nobody can understand their elite, upper crust accents! Worth a look for fans of O Lucky Man and social satire movies in general.
Just don't expect to laugh out loud a lot.Too many directions - Poet
This film ends up going in too many directions and tries to be too many things to be truly good. It's a mixture of cartoonish farce, with the mad scientist thing, and it tries to sell a political message at the same time. In the end, the viewer ends up wondering where this movie really wanted to go. There were some good parts, but it was not enough to make it a good flick.
Member Reviews
Read All...
Unsettling - RobBC
Too bitter to be dismissed as mere farce, too blunt to be simple satire, this final installment in Lindsay Anderson’s trilogy on the decline of the British Empire is equal parts sitcom and social diatribe. Like the boarding school in “If...” we once again ...Mich Travis is back. - Superdave
School rebel (If...) and coffee salesman (O Lucky Man) Mick Travis is back, this time as a reporter checking out a government funded hospital which is about to receive a Royal visit from the Queen Mother. He encounters vicious hardhat strikers, greedy and ...Too many directions - Poet
This film ends up going in too many directions and tries to be too many things to be truly good. It's a mixture of cartoonish farce, with the mad scientist thing, and it tries to sell a political message at the same time. In the end, the viewer ends up wondering ...