The Duke review: Jim Broadbent is disarmingly winsome in the late Roger Michell’s comedy caper

Broadbent stars as Kempton Bunton, who, in 1961, was accused of stealing Goya’s ‘Portrait of the Duke of Wellington’ from the National Gallery

Dir: Roger Michell. Starring: Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren, Fionn Whitehead, Anna Maxwell Martin, Matthew Goode. 12A, 95 minutes.

If Jim Broadbent ever felt inclined to commit a high-stakes art heist, The Duke is proof that he would probably get away with it. He’s that disarmingly winsome in Roger Michell’s final film, which offers an unlikely spin on the classic comedy caper. The director, who died last September, always made films with a sort of gentle affability (Broadbent previously starred in one of Michell's best, 2013’s Le Week-End). And, as The Duke reminds us once more, he knew how to get the very best out of his actors without forcing unnecessary dramatics.

The film sees Broadbent play one Kempton Bunton. He was not, as the name suggests, the protagonist of an Ealing comedy, though The Duke has one foot firmly planted in the genre. He was a real man who, in 1961, was accused of stealing Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery. The film’s script, written by Clive Coleman and Richard Bean, provides a neat summary of his motivations, as expressed by a handwriting expert (played by Sian Clifford, aka Claire from Fleabag). “He’s a fantasist who believes he’s an idealist,” she declares – a Don Quixote-style auto-didact with a socialist drive and very little clue about grassroots campaigning. It’s all received with widespread befuddlement by his two sons, played by Jack Bandeira and Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead, and wife of many years, played by Helen Mirren.