Official Secrets
Directed by: Gavin Hood
Written by: Gregory & Sara Bernstein and Gavin Hood - Based on the book “The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion”
Starring: Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Adam Bakri, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Peter Guinness, Indira Varma, Jack Farthing, MyAnna Buring, Clive Francis, Tamsin Greig, Hattie Morahan, Kenneth Cranham
Biography/Drama/Romance - 112 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Sep 2019
Written by: Gregory & Sara Bernstein and Gavin Hood - Based on the book “The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion”
Starring: Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Adam Bakri, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Peter Guinness, Indira Varma, Jack Farthing, MyAnna Buring, Clive Francis, Tamsin Greig, Hattie Morahan, Kenneth Cranham
Biography/Drama/Romance - 112 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Sep 2019
16 years of hindsight continue to prove governments manipulated intelligence, fabricated lies, and coerced and cajoled a “coalition of the wiling” into a catastrophic war. Nobody went to prison for war crimes and there appears to be a likely chance most of the charade will only be covered in footnotes and asides in academic dissertations. While Operation Iraqi Freedom will forever be known as George W. Bush’s war, he had more help than the menacing Cheney, the tragic figure of Powell, and the giddy two-step of Rice. He had Tony Blair in his pocket. While director Gavin Hood makes no excuses for Bush and his clan, his direct ire and vitriol accuses Blair and the British government of high crimes against the British people. According to Hood, Britain was a conniving flunky for its larger ally and worst of all, vindictive to those who would expose their lies and avarice. Gavin Hood is angry and he is here in 2019 to ensure you do not forget the audacity and ineptitude of 2003.
Intelligence analysts live by the mantra “ours is not to reason why.” They gather, process, interpret, and disseminate what they discover to their political masters. Once the politicians get their oily tentacles on the products, it is theirs to do with as they please. The current U.S. administration is no different in cherry-picking and twisting intelligence than the Bush administration was during their persuasive argument stage attempting to get the United Nations to buy off on the notion Saddam Hussein was hiding a massive Weapons of Mass Destruction arsenal. In 2003, it was a “slam dunk.” In 2019, it feels like a nauseating fraud. An e-mail requesting GCHQ’s help in figuring out ways to blackmail Security Council voters to support a war resolution lands in Katharine Gun’s inbox and she immediately recognizes the illegality of the deceptive affair.
Intelligence analysts live by the mantra “ours is not to reason why.” They gather, process, interpret, and disseminate what they discover to their political masters. Once the politicians get their oily tentacles on the products, it is theirs to do with as they please. The current U.S. administration is no different in cherry-picking and twisting intelligence than the Bush administration was during their persuasive argument stage attempting to get the United Nations to buy off on the notion Saddam Hussein was hiding a massive Weapons of Mass Destruction arsenal. In 2003, it was a “slam dunk.” In 2019, it feels like a nauseating fraud. An e-mail requesting GCHQ’s help in figuring out ways to blackmail Security Council voters to support a war resolution lands in Katharine Gun’s inbox and she immediately recognizes the illegality of the deceptive affair.
With everything to lose and apparently not taking the time to consider the consequences of her actions, Katharine (Keira Knightley, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) spirits the Top Secret memo out of GCHQ and into the hands of journalists where Martin Bright (Matt Smith, Terminator Genisys) of the London Observer takes on the challenge of verifying its authenticity. The Observer has come out for the war as they publish Prime Minister Blair’s press releases with relish and glee. This journalistic toadyism astonishes their D.C. correspondent, Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans, Alice Through the Looking Glass), who hams up the screen with his screeds against his lap dog editor and how the newsmen enable tyranny through their lack of true reporting rigor. Facts are checked, articles are published, and Katharine finds herself in a world of jurisprudence and threats.
The screenplay by Hood and Gregory and Sara Bernstein, which is based on the book “The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion,” loves the line, “but then I would be in breach of the Official Secrets Act!” Multiple characters spout it and it becomes its own refrain. The cloak and dagger of Katharine’s subterfuge to print the e-mail and mail it off is a bit ham-handed and overdrawn, but Hood makes his point, Katharine makes a tough choice based on morality and a guilty conscience. She watches, in real time, as supposed democratic governments deliberately mangle and even manufacture the ground truth to support their devious ends. Foreboding synths and dark tones echo the plodding scenes of dread and paranoia.
The film’s second half is a bit more law and order. Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part) takes on Katharine’s case and morphs it into a case against the entire Iraq War rather than merely defending a woman accused of treason. The arguments will excite those of us who majored in Political Science, such as “Who is she to undermine the strategic direction of a democratically elected Prime Minister?” However, I question whether dialogue like that will tickle the fancy of John Q. political thriller aficionado. Hood’s message is familiar, there are those who opt for safety by just following orders and the truly brave who dare to confront the bureaucratic behemoth. IFC Films is making the story of one woman versus the world their 2019 cause célèbre - remember Red Joan? One woman decided the Soviets also needed to know how to create atomic weapons lest trigger-happy militaries choose to pickle off a few more after Japan. These two films would make a fitting double feature.
Gavin Hood is one of those directors who is at home in a particular genre, but then jumps over to blockbusters to pay the bills. In between his film on Rendition in 2007 and his drone study, Eye in the Sky in 2015, he kept the oil burning with one of the biggest X-Men franchise disappointments in Origins: Wolverine and the so-so adaption of the beloved novel Ender’s Game. Hood is still pissed off about 2003 and perhaps fears contemporary audiences are forgetting what happened considering the current political farce and theatrics they are bombarded with everyday through Twitter and hyper-polarized news media. Knightley plays scared and Fiennes plays reassuring and practical, but the world went ahead with the war, lives were lost, aftershocks continue to rock the Middle East, and now all we may have left of that time are the stories to fill in the cracks. This one serves as an average addition to the appendix.
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