‘Pressure’ Review: Brendan Fraser’s General Eisenhower Drowns in Dull D-Day Weather Drama

Andrew Scott and Chris Messina fare only slightly better as meteorologists helping invade Normandy.

A regrettable swing-and-miss for Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, who stars as General Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Pressure” opens with a genuinely arresting image. It’s a bird’s-eye view of countless bloody bodies scattered across a beach following Operation Tiger: the disastrous Allied rehearsal for D-Day that left hundreds of men dead weeks before the real invasion of Normandy ever began.

For that brief moment, filmmaker Anthony Maras seems poised to make something politically urgent and even psychologically immersive from one of World War II’s most pivotal strategic decisions. The film‘s uneven script, adapted by Maras and co-writer David Haig from Haig’s 2014 play, aims to artfully transform weather forecasting into a philosophical battlefield with impossible global stakes.

Instead, “Pressure” gradually collapses into a weirdly melodramatic chamber piece that never quite justifies its otherwise breathtaking sense of cinematic scale. Set in the days immediately leading up to D-Day, Focus Features’ new war drama centers on Royal Air Force Group Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott), U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel Irving P. Krick (Chris Messina), and the two odd-couple meteorologists’ small team of scientists stationed at Southwick House near Portsmouth, England.

The military men are tasked with advising General Eisenhower (Fraser) on the air and sea conditions surrounding the Allies’ key advance in the summer of 1944. Krick, a swaggering and singing(!) American forecaster, who gets introduced like he just wandered in from a winning “Mary Poppins Returns” audition, argues for optimism to a fault. Cherry-picking favorable year-over-year weather patterns to justify moving ahead with the invasion on June 5, Krick wants to tell Eisenhower that D-Day is a “go.”

But opposing him is Stagg, a Scottish, stick-in-the-mud academic (which is saying a lot by most weather men’s personality standards), who insists on making the team’s joint recommendation exclusively using the current observational data available to Allied forces. Soon, Stagg predicts not one but two incoming storms headed straight for the French coast, and he won’t budge on his professional opinion — even if it means Eisenhower has to delay the West’s crucial invasion until as late as June 18.

There’s something compelling buried in that dynamic as “Pressure” fascinates itself with the inherent conflict between historical precedent and current reality. Feeling the seductive comfort of the cycles we only think we know clash against the terrifying uncertainty of the present moment will no doubt be unsettlingly familiar for some modern viewers. But flanked by a dozen or so time-lapse cloud sequences, Maras and his cast strain toward a kind of biblical grandeur their painfully effortful film can’t reach. 

In “Pressure,” Fraser, Scott, and Messina don’t just disagree with each other, but instead, repeatedly bellow their competing mission statements across the same handful of sets like a troupe of exhausted drama students stuck in an endless line-reading exercise. “There is only ONE chief meteorological officer!,” Scott roars, anchoring one of several awkward encounters with Messina that feel something akin to a weirdly bookish “Highlander” ripoff. Later, Fraser’s Eisenhower explodes, too, screaming, “I want a forecast you two agree on!” Even in context, the scene is silly and inadvertently suggests such a low level of interpersonal conflict that it seems better mediated by a babysitter than the eventual 34th president. 

What might have played effectively live on stage feels brutally stilted and over-egged here, especially as Maras surrounds his and Haig’s weakest material with the visual language of prestige cinema. “Pressure” becomes increasingly frustrating as huge portions are beautifully crafted and cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay gives the film’s limited handful of battlefield scenes a tactile, rain-soaked quality that’s admirably reminiscent of superior period dramas, like “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Dunkirk.”

The costumes in “Pressure” are immaculate, and production design is richly imagined. But while Maras and his collaborators clearly know how to frame these events using impressive visual techniques, that sophistication struggles to connect emotionally as the acting and writing duke it out for the title of Bigger Disappointment. Even among Fraser’s die-hard fans, his portrayal of Eisenhower seems likely to prove a baffling liability. In fact, the performance is so egregiously underwhelming that any masochists who plan on seeing it anyway should probably look up clips of the real Eisenhower before hitting theaters.

Historically speaking, the Allied Supreme Commander wasn’t considered an angry brute so much as a steady diplomat who was capable of sudden, persuasive rage. And yet, despite being afforded a strong-enough platform to deliver a main character worth seeing, Fraser can’t begin to find the gravitas required to believably lead the free world. The “Pressure” star routinely drowns in the importance of the part itself, and Fraser has a tendency to swallow Eisenhower’s more politically savvy lines in a way that makes some of Maras and Haig’s best work turn muddy. Worse still, the wide-eyed vulnerability that served Fraser so well in “The Whale” works mysteriously against him here — giving off an empathetic vulnerability that’s plenty strong but ultimately doesn’t give the impression of authentic, weapons-grade authority. 

During one particularly strange scene, Eisenhower coldly dismisses a staff member’s request to check on a patient at a nearby hospital. The encounter is ostensibly intended to demonstrate the kind of ruthless decisiveness that Eisenhower would have needed in wartime. But Fraser’s fundamentally gentle presence makes the outburst feel random instead of commanding, and his take on the man who ultimately decided when and where to invade Nazi-occupied France skews a smidge infantile as a result. 

Scott fares much, much better, grounding the movie’s goofier dialogue in broadly credible conviction. His scenes with Kerry Condon, who appears as Eisenhower’s Irish secretary Kay Summersby, in particular crackle with a natural intelligence that seems reflective of the pair’s shared theater background in the U.K. Initially, Messina injects that more reserved chemistry with some needed energy and charisma, especially as Krick’s brash confidence needles Stagg beyond decorum. But even that comic tension threatens to rip as the painfully thin story repeatedly circles the same disputes without deepening them.

The overall narrative structure of “Pressure” doesn’t help matters much. Complete with countdown slates leading toward D-Day, Maras employs a ticking-clock framework that turns the precise date of the Normandy invasion into something like a twist. History buffs will appreciate the dramatic irony of seeing these irritated men argue among themselves about a date plenty of people know by heart, while others may be likelier to find themselves siding with Krick’s sunnier forecast just so the movie can end.

Regardless of how much you know about world history, that pacing problem sinks “Pressure” fast. Not every war film needs to reinvent the genre or be a critical masterpiece. But if your audience already knows the outcome of the dramatic question you’re posing, then the experience of watching those events unfold ought to reveal something deeper about humanity or the characters, at least. Instead, Maras and Haig’s adaptation feels like an elegantly mounted reenactment, swiftly dragged down by a gaggle of A-list actors forced to vamp anxiously — until the explosives team could finish setting up.

There are hints of a far better movie peeking out from Maras’ dull weather drama, and the Australian director nearly finds it on numerous occasions. But even supported by Scott’s broad tonal excellence and Fraser’s obvious (if misplaced) commitment, when “Pressure” finally approaches the beaches of Normandy, the attack sails past catharsis and lands like a mercy killing instead. Suffice to say, it’s an unfortunate misfire for everyone involved, and rain or shine, moviegoers should seek shelter elsewhere.

Grade: C

From Focus Features, “Pressure” is in theaters on Friday, May 29.

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