"Most of what follows is true," insists the conspicuously equivocating opening scrawl at the beginning of Two Men Went To War. It's a fitting opening for a war story that belongs firmly in the too-strange-for-fiction file. The ostensibly fact-based film details the misadventures of two misfits in the British Dental Corps during WWII; they're separated by age and temperament, but united in their desire to serve their country in a way that doesn't involve pulling or cleaning teeth. Kenneth Cranham plays a dour old soldier not-so-affectionately nicknamed "The Kaiser" for reasons that quickly become apparent, while Leo Bill is an earnest, fresh-faced private aching for a chance to prove himself in battle.
When Cranham is passed over for combat duty yet again due to his advanced age, he hatches a scheme so crazy, it just might get him court-martialed. Throwing caution to the wind, he decides to travel to France with Bill and serve as a sort of two-man invasion force dedicated to sabotage and destruction. Cranham mails Winston Churchill his plans, but that doesn't seem to matter to the Dental Corps bigwigs, who understandably suspect Cranham and Bill of going AWOL.
Perhaps because it tells such a far-fetched (although apparently true) story, Two Men Went To War possesses a goofiness generally absent from war movies. Director John Henderson and screenwriters Richard Everett and Christopher Villiers sustain a giddy tone, while the cast is uniformly excellent—particularly Cranham and Derek Jacobi as a droll intelligence official. Cleverly realizing a novel premise, it's a slight but charming look at the lighter side of WWII.