Mixed reviews for Boris Johnson's documentary debut

Is Boris Johnson’s new documentary about the Ukraine war a searing dissection of Europe’s bloodiest, most intractable conflict in 75 years or an ego project from an attention-seeking former prime minister desperate to retain some form of cultural relevance? It all depends on which review you read.

Channel 5’s Boris Johnson: Into Ukraine’s Kill Zone in which Johnson dons a flak jacket, travels to Ukraine, gets in the way of soldiers attempting to defend their country and tries to remind the viewer that the whole thing, ultimately, is about Boris Johnson, has been widely pilloried by reviewers for its trite portrayal of a conflict in which anywhere between 1.2 and 2 million people are estimated to have been killed or wounded so far.

In the Guardian, Lucy Mangan gave it a one-star review, noting that the programme’s presenter was “a known liar, a shapeshifting, self-serving narcissist whose mask long ago ate the face”.

“From the moment it begins, you are beset by such questions instead of the ones Boris wants you to be thinking about (‘Does Putin’s cruelty have any chance of success?’), as he interrupts the soldiers trying to explain their individual and national situation with his painful attempts at blokey camaraderie,” writes Mangan. “He refers endlessly to their guns as ‘50 cal [calibre], right?’. He crows, ‘You shot the arse off that one!’ He assures an army chaplain ‘I’ll pray for Ukraine’s victory all right!’

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She also noted his political analysis of the complex conflict. “I just don’t think I’ve ever seen such a clear case of right and wrong … This thing has gotta stop and the west has just gotta snap out of its complacency … It’s wrong.” “And there you go,” sums up Mangan.

Over in the Sunday Times, Charlotte Ivers was similarly unimpressed, writing: “The problem is, Johnson is an innately comic creature, with his thatched head and eyes constantly screwed up as if battling a hangover, or the urge to laugh, or both.

“Given the subject matter, this provided jarring, unwelcome bathos. Periodically, we cut away from an interview with someone describing great bravery or horror, to instead watch Johnson inanely telling us that this war is Putin’s fault and, moreover, Putin is very bad. Well, yes. Obviously. Anything else?”

And in the Observer, Barbara Ellen noted that: “The documentary itself is a multifaceted oddity. It is both the latest round (ding!) of the Johnson versus Putin grudge match (it would take a stronger woman than me to resist pointing out that, with Brexit, Johnson thrilled and empowered Putin), and a character study of a man mourning the power he once wielded on the global stage. The documentary is also what it says it is: a valuable reminder that, for Ukraine, the war and the suffering go on. There’s just far too much… Boris.”

Still, it got one rave review – in the Daily Mail, which ran it under the headline ‘Boris in the Kill Zone: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS’ five-star review of stunning documentary’.

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“Ukraine is the bulwark holding back a potential war in Europe. Boris Johnson understands this, and possesses the orator’s turn of phrase to make others understand it, too,” writes Stevens.

“‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a clear case of right and wrong, good and evil,’ he said. ‘I’m convinced that they’re going to win. We could help them win much faster if we gave them some things that they need.’

“Lining up with the gunners at the ack-ack battery, he gave two thumbs up to the camera. ‘Slava Ukraini!’ he shouted. Victory to Ukraine!”.

Sounds like a must-watch! Although, for context, the review did also point out that “the former prime minister and Daily Mail columnist was filming deep inside battle-scarred eastern Ukraine, with fellow Daily Mail journalists Richard Pendlebury and Jamie Wiseman, for a 90-minute documentary, Boris Johnson: Into Ukraine’s Kill Zone, made by the newly launched Daily Mail Originals production unit”.