Defense of the Realm

Rating:
Summary: A thinking person's movie
Review: Fast moving all too credible movie showing dealing with the issue of press freedom versus what should be considered secrets of the state.
Great casting. This is a gem that is surprisingly little known.

Rating:
Summary: I Missed Something - Thriller? Chiller? Niether
Review: I am not sure that espionage stories and the thinking person genre fit together very well. This movie is at all times provocative, if only because it gives you so irritatingly little to go on. And the music always swells as if something is finally going to happen and things are going to really start rolling and everything is going to come together and there is going to be some wild getaway down the back alleys of London and you get...cut to next scene with indiscernible clue. This is the kind of movie where you look at the counter on the DVD player and it says one hour ten minutes and you are thinking to yourself - wow, they are going to really have to pack a lot into the next 30 minutes, and then you look again and it says one hour 30 minutes, and you say wow, this is going to be a cracking last ten minutes, and then it's over and you wish you had watched football instead of wasting your brain and time for so long.

Rating:
Summary: Defense of the Realm
Review: Overlooked. Something of a quiet sensation when it came out in the mid 1980's. Starring Gabriel Byrne(in his first lead role), Greta Scacchi, and Denholm Elliot. The script could have been written by John Le Carre. A complex, claustrophobic, dark, fast-paced film which requires alertness on the part of the audience.

Rating:
Summary: Defense of the Realm
Review: Overlooked. Something of a quiet sensation when it came out in the mid 1980's. Starring Gabriel Byrne(in his first lead role), Greta Scacchi, and Denholm Elliot. The script could have been written by John Le Carre. A complex, claustrophobic, dark, fast-paced film which requires alertness on the part of the audience. Not available on DVD in the U.S.

Rating:
Summary: One you missed at the theatre.
Review: Saw this little gem when it originally was released theatrically. Needless to say, I was impressed.

Starring a terrific Gabriel Byrne (does this guy ever age?), it is a very tight story of a newspaper reporter (Byrne) who comes across a story of a Member of Parliament having an affair with a prostitute, who is also seeing a KGB agent.

But things are much more complex than they initially appear, and it becomes a much thicker paranoia thiller (one of my favourite themes). If you liked "The Parallax View" (1974) - or favour conspiracy theories - then you'll like this very British effort.

Watch for the gaggle of reporters camped on the Minister's doorstep. Durning the scene, a car backs into one of the reports, knocking him down. It is never explained...

The DVD transfer is exceptional, though in typical MGM fashion, there are no extras except for the original trailer.

Rating:
Summary: An absolute cracker
Review: The showbiz adage of 'never work with children or animals' was, within the British film industry, extended to 'never work with children, animals or Denholm Elliot'. He was, rightly, labelled a 'scene stealer' and with his passing, one of the 'true stars' were lost.

Gabrielle Byrne and Greta Scacchi star in this 1984 UK film, but the film, despite featuring a young Robbie Coltrane ( Cracker ), is forever Elliot's. Massively underrated, this film is a powerful indictment of the true 'powers that be'. Governments come and governments go, but the engine room remains in place, along with the stokers.

Is this a political thriller, a journalistic thriller, a shadowy thriller even - scary too, maybe ?. Probably all and more besides. It's very taut, very fast, very complex and, perhaps, very true to life ( the scary bit ). Underhand and double dealing are rife and little mercy is shown to the designated stooges. Elliot, as Vernon Bayliss, suffers no fools here and realising the enormity of the truth and confiding in nobody, pays a heavy price for his refusal to be swept along with the tide of seemingly incontrovertible proofs. Perhaps Fox Mulder saw this film and coined 'trust no-one' from Elliots' performance.

What is sure, though, is that a field day awaits conspiracy theorists who watch this. There is no sex, no violence and no profanity and I defy anyone to watch this film only once.