User Reviews

I'm also an ad guy who's spent his share of time in offices beating up strategy on white boards, so I was sucked right in and saw a bit of myself. The lead character Dominic was like most of the folks in media industries that serve some great big unseen master. We put our noses to the grindstone, put our hearts on the paper for the elusive "win", yet we overlook the damage we potentially could be causing to the world. And what damage they have done. I found out things I hadn't known before, like the role of the Mercers being behind both big data companies, thus guaranteeing their influence on the referendum. And that is where I started to pull on my guts. That they had not only done it to England but had done it to America; manipulated politics, empowering an element of society that we should be leaving in the dark cellar of the 20th century. The fear of the other on an ever shrinking world controlled by ever more powerful and terrible titans is a regression. But the story is still being told and we will know the conclusion... maybe. I highly recommend this film and leave one thought: In this ever more loud and volatile world, we must listen more than we talk.

Outsider of the Uk, watched this movie trying to understand the brexit thing, but ended up thinking about how tec and social media when organized can take a great control in our decisions and predict our behavior, left me thinking about control while giving me some perspective about what happened with the brexit at the same time.

I also liked how I couldn't figure out what was the posture of the director, did he vote leave? Did he vote stay? I couldn't determine if he was bias or not, but the message about control was heard.

In the run-up to the 2016 referendum, nobody in the UK - or elsewhere, for that matter - genuinely believed that Vote Leave would win (similarly to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election result). It seemed more or less incomprehensible that Remain would be defeated. This is arguably evidenced by the fact that there were no rules set out for the referendum and the meaning of its outcome (e.g. that it should require more than a measly 2% majority to invoke such major Constitutional upheaval) and that David Cameron resigned almost immediately thereafter.

This energetic and witty film explores just how the rug was swept out from under us all, and highlights how dangerous social media can be when used as a weapon. Unsurprisingly, Benedict Cumberbatch gives yet another engrossing performance, with an impressive and entertaining ensemble as well.

Whether you were politically-engaged in relation to the referendum or completely overwhelmed by all the jargon (and utter lies), this is an insightful drama well worth a watch. Although, don't expect it to outline what is certain to happen next in the Brexit saga: that'll be down to the fool at the helm of the ship, and her band of dim-witted and utterly divided crew.

This tells the story of an almost unknown man who changed the lives of a nation forever. Lives of generations to come are reduced to just words and marketing campaigns. It makes me very sad.

The film centers on Dominic Cummings, a classic Cumberbatch character: very intelligent, socially awkward, not suffering of and insulting to fools, embarking on something like strategizing the Leave campaign mostly as an intellectual exercise. We learn how modern technology, mainly social media analytics, helped empower people who had abandoned the idea of voting and were ignored by all political sides. We see how from the data scientist perspective, using these tools to cause Great Britain to split from Europe was just a concept test, with a much larger prize as a target. That's the illuminating part.

The imperfect part is that the narrative of the film is clearly a remainer one, with leavers depicted as hapless grobians and remainers as rational decent empathetic (and attractive) people. It doesn't try to understand the other side at all, leaving that job to the algorithms depicted in the film. I also question the release of the film way before the fat lady finished her song on Brexit. As such it feels spiteful: "we lost, but they had Sherlock Holmes as strategy manager and magical algorithms that manipulate a sea of fools". I don't like fools either and I think Britain leaving the EU is idiotic, but even so the film felt condescending to me.

However, the movie is not bad and it asks (or rather induces the viewer to ask) some important questions about the future of decision making. It still falls into the category of seeing mass social manipulation as an accident, as something people do not want, when in fact all evidence points to the contrary: people post everything they know and feel so that the embracing system will give them exactly what they want. They want to be manipulated to feel better than if they were rational and not lying to themselves. For this kind of people, a movie like Brexit will not function as a warning, but as validation. It is for this reason that I rated the film a failure. It is clear what it wanted to do, but just as the well meant remainer campaign in the movie, it falls on deaf ears.

Enjoyed reliving the 2016 referendum , although it seems to be written by a remainer attempting to make Cummings Johnson Gove and co look stupid it didn't spoil the film Cumberbatch acts his role superbly

... in that your social media data can not just be harvested to sell you hats and hamburgers, but sell you misinformation literally tailored to you for political campaigns as well.

This is the tale of the 2016 referendum on Brexit- the vote in the UK to leave the European Union. Specifically it is a portrait of one man, Dominic Cummings (Benedict Cumberbatch), the director of the "Leave" campaign, or the campaign to exit the EU. I wasn't sure why the side story of the Cummings marriage and pregnancy was included at first, but later it becomes clear that Cummings would have come across as a statistician/political version of House, M.D. if that humanizing story was not present.

Cummings enlists the help of a tiny Canadian IT company - Aggregate IQ - to do data mining of social media for the "Leave" campaign, and they come up with three million potential Brexit voters that the "Remain" campaign (campaign to remain in the EU) knows nothing about. Cummings' strategy involves tenets of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" , specifically forcing the "Remain" campaign to "fight in the darkness", or wherever the "Leave" campaign chose them to fight. Specifically Britain has an equal time policy when it comes to political messages. So the Remain campaign would have a Nobel prize winning economist explaining the downside to leaving the EU in complex terms, and then the Leave side would talk about millions of Turks possibly emigrating to the UK, forcing the Remain side to waste time on trying to debunk that message.

It is up the viewer as to whether this tale is humorous or frightening, I think it is a little bit of both. On the frightening side you have political campaigns becoming the equivalent of the evil presence in the 1982 film Poltergeist - it knows what scares you. On the humorous side you see the frustration of the Remain side as the Leave side will simply not play by the rules. And kudos to the guy playing Boris Johnson. He looked just like him.

I'm only knocking one point off this almost perfect film because it had quite a bit of stuff that the viewer was just assumed to know. For example it kept talking about "MPs". In the US that is "Military Police". In the UK it is "Members of Parliament". I should not have to search Wikipedia in order to completely understand a film, but overall that is a minor complaint.

Highly recommended,and this is NOT a piece of propaganda.

As an Republican, I expected the worst; but the film offers an interesting look at British politics which I appreciated. Having said that, the idea that only the Right uses social media to target voters is ludicrous. Portraying a disenfranchised public as fear mongers is laughable, since what exactly is claiming the economy will crash if the UK were to leave the EU but fear mongering? As for Robert Mercer being some mastermind funder of the right; I guess the producers of this feature never heard of George Soros?

Other reviewers praise or knock this film based on whether they supported Leave or Remain.

But this is a great film because (1) the plot, characters, acting and pace are superb and (2) it illuminates the role data analytics now play in politics (and all advertising). Like it or not, DA is here to stay because it is extraordinarily more efficient in delivering a message effectively.

The key elements of the Leave/Remain debate in these reviews can be boiled down to 3 incidents in the film (1) the line "Obama led the way," (2) the Remain focus group which descends into anarchy and complete honesty with a housewife sobbing about having been completely abandoned by her country's economy and culture (whose views are shared by at least 3 others in the group), and (3) the aftermath of the focus group in which the Remain campaign leader concludes that the feelings of the Leave voters are due not to them having valid complaints, but because the Leave leaders must have been waging their campaign surreptitiously for 20 years.

The pièce de résistance of sophistry is the single card disclosure at the end that the Mercer family is tied to both data analytics companies used by the Leave campaign. Data analytics is a tool that was used by Obama (a liberal) and by the Leave campaign (conservatives). It would make as much sense to blame the hardware company that made their laptops or phones.

There are some movies that are worth seeing despite their political bias and preaching - this is one of them.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

During the summer of 2016, the nation was swept up in the fever of whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union. Some were firmly set in one camp or the other, while many others were undecided, but a slew of public figures were fixed in the public spotlight, galvanized by this historic, once in a lifetime decision. But for the Leave campaign, it was one man behind the scenes who pulled most of the strings, in the shape of Dominic Cummings (Benedict Cumberbatch), a campaign strategist, whose powerhouse approach may have swung it in their favour.

The 'Brexit' vote certainly defined the summer of 2016, and in the time since then, it's held a stranglehold on the news, which has been intensifying as we build up to leave at the end of March. And so, after all the madness and sabre rattling of the vote and the subsequent aftermath, director Toby Haynes has at least picked a suitable time to offer a reflective look at a man who hardly anybody saw, but probably did more for the Brexit cause than any of the famous faces combined.

Despite his established status now, its good that Cumberbatch still doesn't find appearing in homegrown, TV stuff like this beneath him, as he brings an intensity and power to proceedings here that liven them up a bit, and he has a knack for playing these eccentric, socially awkward types whom everything clings on, here portraying the kind of guy who figures adding the word 'back' to a sentence gives it its power. What's not so impressive is the interspersing of footage of real life political personalities, alongside third rate actors portraying others, giving it a cheap, low budget feel.

It's all over before you know it, and while it's sharp and hits the mark where it needs you, it's not developed and fleshed out enough to leave you feeling like you've watched something with real clout. But it is an eye opener, and offers food for thought on what goes on behind the scenes that influences us more than what we see. ***

What came out was how people can be manipulated one way or another. Due to 'Spin' by all the political parties and a media that despises all other authority figures or organization except themselves have now destroyed trust in the public arena. As they said in the film 'we used the EU as a political punch bag so much over the past 40 years no one will now listen to the truth". This goes for: MMR vaccines, Global Warming, GM crops and now the EU. As Gove said 'People are sick of listening to experts'. Just think how bad that sounds! Brexit has opened Pandora's box and I don't think they know to put all this back. remember Joe Cox, this is what our country has become.

Personal politics aside I am very wary of this level of 'drama as documentary'. The caveat at the start both protects and gives cart blanche to all levels of obfuscation, manipulation and fantasisation (something the film is at pains to highlight). The film is clearly biased in its representation of all involved and certainly leaves much out (neither side came out as innocents). However to be honest the acting is solid and it does get the broad themes correct (though stylistically the cinematography is annoying).

Just an absolutely shameless movie, not unlike Vice. It shows how out of touch the left is with the average person. In Vice, Dick Cheney is shown to be a ruthless, calculating politician who uses focus groups, polls and statistics to beat his opponents. In Brexit, Dominic Cummings does much the same thing but relies heavily on social media to swing votes his way.

A movie like this just highlights the arrogance of many math geeks, especially the ones I met at university. Anyone with a basic education can look at numbers and draw conclusions from them. It takes someone who gets out of the house once in a while and does something to understand the whole story. You have to be an incredibly arrogant person to think the average voter is like some NPC waiting to be told what to do or how to think. It just doesn't work that way.

We're shown Dominic acting like an eccentric genius, writing on walls, talking down to anyone stereotypically less intelligent than he is, with visual cues like gray hair, working class clothing, skin color, uptight, etc. He's supposed to be some genius that fooled everyone into voting for Brexit against their best interest.

So, alright then, if this was the case, why was there even a vote on Brexit to begin with, LOL? It would never have happened if most people loved it! Clearly, the vote happened because much of the population wanted it to. So, to whomever made this movie, how in the world do you expect to fool people into thinking Dominic had to go to the lengths he did to win the Leave vote? All you can really do is convince the swing voters to go your way on election day. Really and truly, that may be like winning an NBA game by 20 points instead of 10; you're still going to win even if you didn't go the extra mile.

This is a movie that will probably not age well. In fact, that's all but assured. Hilary thought she had geniuses working for her that would help her easily coast to victory. On election night, she was embarrassed. All the guys she employed like Dominic and the tech guys were just a waste of money and time. Why? Simple fact is, she's not a likable person, she has a vile personality and on the issues, Trump knew what the voters wanted. Hilary had top strategists; why not copy what worked for Trump? She couldn't do that because she's not a robot willing to do anything to win like you see in the movies, she has personal political convictions and beliefs. The only thing is, like with Obama, Trump's beliefs were what the voters wanted and he was a far more sympathetic candidate.

This movie is sadly just not an accurate depiction of an actual campaign. The political strategists want to make everyone think their pay is justified for what they do, but quite often, it just isn't, no matter what figures they throw at you.

I wont write a long review as I am near the end of the film-docu. but its been an eyeopener for me! I am an Avid BREXITEER. But one who has made his mind up with my wife is is from another country outside the EU.

We had to deal with the EU some years ago when my wife had to apply for a visa to come and stay here in England, The hoops the EU legislations made her jump through were shocking! Criminal background checks for both of us and it cost use around 3000 Euros and took 2.5 years to finalise, YET we are seeing people land on our beaches or be invited in by the left with open arms who we know nothing about? My wife has degrees in teaching and specialises in teaching kids with Aspergers, ADHD ect but we still had to go through all the rigma, How is this right?

For me the Film-Docu shows how flawed the eu and its machine is, how one sided the left and eu are.

IF you want a great insight into the truth you MUST watch this!

Some fine performances from a very strong cast are hamstrung by a script and directorial style which largely paints in broad comedic brush strokes. When the tone needs to shift, it jars; and the character arc given to Dominic Cummings seems hopelessly fanciful in the light of more recent events. The whole thing, while entertaining, fails to learn the lesson it is trying to teach: the smugness of the political establishment and a patronising view of others (others who are represented, it seems, by just three characters with any meaningful dialogue.)

As someone who had been waiting since 1992 to be asked if it was OK being in the EU, you might expect me to excoriate this drama. I'm not. It was entertaining and for the most part well executed. Cumberbatch is engaging just as you'd expect although portrayals of minor characters are patchy. The pacing is pretty good, keeping what might otherwise be a dry political drama ticking along nicely.

What wasn't good? The silly prophecies and poorly grounded denouncements, which spoil an otherwise competent work.

Well acted and well done.. side note it was great to see Britain to take back their country!

Excellent drama and acting with accurate details. Hypocrisy, hatred, false promises, voters manipulation, abuse of our data. It should be a lesson to us all, yet some are still in denial....

This movie not great but good enough. It describes how the British withdraw from the brexit

POSITIVES:

1) Cumberbatch's performance is very good, with one criticism that I'll mention later 2) The cinematography is surprisingly good, with lots of long takes and good camera movement 3) There are some fantastic scenes, especially the two focus group scenes and the pub conversation between Cumberbatch and Kinnear

NEGATIVES:

1) There are frequent montages of news clips and lots of text appearing on screen which shows that the film is only a tv film and not cinematic 2) The film mostly feels like a drama but then the caricatures of Johnson, Gove and Farage are so outlandish and silly that it contradicts the otherwise dramatic tone 3) As a Geordie myself, I have to say that there are times where Cumberbatch's Geordie accent is all over the place

..which is yet more propaganda and not an attempt to provide an accurate representation of what really happened.

The movie is quite clearly remain focussed, right down to the casting for the leave side (banks in particular is made to look very bad). The premise is that leave won because the stupid people were duped... which is one of the many inaccuracies the remain side holds.

Regardless, the movie is very watchable and I enjoyed it.

Brexit: The Uncivil War is an important, gripping drama on the real events that occurred in both the Leave and Remain campaigns during the run-up to the 2016 EU Referendum. The film focuses primarily on the Vote Leave campaign, which makes sense as said campaign was anything but conventional.

The film accurately explains the strategy behind Vote Leave's achievement of that which was previously thought unthinkable. The campaign utilised modern techniques of reaching voters which exploited the data we choose to make freely-available online. The sophistication of strategy depicted and Vote Leave's underdog status from the beginning of their campaign will definitely have some remain voters finding themselves rooting for the other team (despite their positions differing).

Although admittedly somewhat dramatised, Brexit: The Uncivil War truly does illustrate that recent political events have changed Western politics permanently. For the best or the worst, strategy is changing, and this film conveys that message perfectly.

Too late to reminisce on how the referendum was run, and who is to be blamed for what, but the result is going to be widespread.

The leavers got the upper hand with a gullible public, with citizens not knowing the reason, value and benefits of EU membership in the early 1970's, which happened before most of them were born. Taking back control sounds good in a slogan and any unhappiness can then easily be blamed on this membership, true or not. The leavers campaign was cleverly run, but morally it unleashed the devil, with no one now being able to predict the ultimate outcome. Britain will have to reinvent itself with no experience in how to do this.

This saga has not yet been concluded, but time is running out. March 2019 is just weeks ahead.

The film started off very slowly and dull, but eventually covered the campaign as it unfolded. Dominic Cummings shifts responsibility and blames the people for it not going according to plan. An admission that he didn't expect the leavers to win?

According to Brexit - The Uncivil War. Leave won primarily because of Cambridge Analytica's manipulation of social media platforms. Not because people had had enough of self serving establishment elitist politics. It depicted leavers as dim witted builder types mainly and shouty women, was a bit of a poor show on that side.

It vaguely tried to be fair to both sides, but ultimately it's a remainer narrative. Perfectly timed propaganda in my book.