Review: The Current War (Director's Cut)
Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 8:49AM by Tony Ruggio
After more than a year of pre-release hell at the scissorhands of Harvey Weinstein and his terrible deeds, The Current War has finally seen the light of day. Tackling the industrial war over electricity between famed inventor Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and business magnate George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), it’s a good story well told. Well, after a rough first half, anyway. The epic narrative is rushed and contracted in the early going, before evening out and focusing more on character in the final stretch.
The breakneck pacing actually does the film a disservice, as we barely get to spend time with Edison, Westinghouse, or their creations before director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon barrels forward to the next moment in history. Classical themes of greed, power, and loss are threaded like any other biopic of powerful men, but the greatest subtext lays therein, where the two men differed so greatly...