Defense of the Realm

This is a wonderfully moody piece, featuring the magnificently brooding Gabriel Byrne as a journo on the trail of sinister conspiracies.

Dark, seedy and washed out, with a wealth of British stars, following an intricately woven thread of plot, this is a great example of old-fashioned, restrained British film.

Gabriel Byrne stars in "Defence of the Realm," a 1985 film also starring Denholm Elliott, Greta Scacchi, Ian Bannen and Robbie Coltrane.

Byrne plays Mullen, an aggressive newsman who is responsible for a story leading to the downfall of a Parliament member - he was seen leaving a madam's house, as was a KGB agent. However, he soon learns that there's much more to the story than that and that the man has been set up because he knew to much.

This is a very good story with handsome Byrne heading up an excellent cast of foreign faces that will be very familiar to Americans. All of the acting is good, with a standout performance by Denholm Elliott. The beautiful Greta Scacchi, an asset to any production, is totally wasted here, however.

What I liked best about this, and many other British films, is that you have to pay attention - first of all, so that your ears can adjust to the sound of not only the accents but also adjust to the way the British allow room tone to mix in with the dialogue, which we're not used to here. It gives the atmosphere a much more realistic flavor.

Worth seeing.

It seemed quite promising, but was hard to follow in places, not helped by one or two outdoor scenes not transforming well onto a TV screen. I'd recorded it, so on several occasions was able to rewind to have another go at understanding it. It might help if I was to watch the entire film again from start to finish, but I can't be bothered. As I understand it, a youth fleeing from the police clambers over a very nasty looking fence onto the runway of an American air base and gets killed by an aircraft that's landing with a nuclear bomb on board. This precipitates an emergency exodus from the base. Cue cover-up, investigated by local MP who gets set up, leading to investigation by reporter.

Byrne does well as the reporter, but as is often the case Denholm Elliott impresses the most. Greta Scacchi is very bland.

Well put together, and it will not do your paranoia any good at all! (But then, if you're not a bit paranoid, there's something wrong with you!)

Perhaps the characters could do with filling out a little, but on the whole, this is a very well-crafted thriller, to which you have to pay attention, as there are no big info-dumps or exposition: you have to work out a lot for yourself.

Beginning with the later years of the Cold War and extending to this very day, there has been this question about the enemies of a nation: are the ones within more dangerous then the external ones? This question has produced quite a few intriguing thrillers over the years and one such is Defence Of The Realm from 1986. This film looks at that question from the perspective of late Cold War UK politics and in turn presents a realistic yet tense thriller in the process.

The film has a fine cast of some of the UK's best actors and character actors of the time. Leading the cast is Gabriel Byrne as reporter Nick Mullen who finds himself writing one story and then follows a trail of breadcrumbs that leads him to discovering he has in fact been used. That trail of breadcrumbs belongs to Mullen's colleague and mentor of sorts Vernon Bayliss in a BAFTA winning performance from Denholm Elliott who makes the most of a small part. Helping Mullen is Greta Scacchi as Nina Beckman, the assistant to a Parliament member (played by Ian Bannen) caught up in the events. They are aided by Bill Paterson as Mullen immediate boss and opposed by David Calder as the newspaper's editor and Fulton Mackay as the owner of the newspaper Mullen works for. Also in a small role is an early appearance from Robbie Coltrane as a fellow reporter in a few scenes. The result is that the film is well anchored by a fine cast.

The film is helped out by the realism of the production values. This is especially true of the production design of Roger Murray-Leach who, working with what was likely a small budget, nonetheless created a whole plethora of sets ranging from newsrooms to a U.S Air Force base before taking us inside the secret halls of the government. Roger Deakins cinematography gives the film a sense of claustrophobia at all times even when the film ventures into wide open spaces. The result of this is amplified by the editing of Michael Bradsell and the score from Richard Harvey to create an almost continuous sense of menace throughout the film. All this comes together under the direction of David Drury to give the film a strong sense of realism.

The production values though take that realism from the script by Martin Stellman. The script looks at the question mentioned in this review's opening and does so through the lens of late Cold War Britain. At a time when Cold War tensions were increasing and a good deal of the public clamored for the government to do something about it, the film looks at how far a government and its national security apparatus might go to prevent a scandal that could bring about just that. What appears to be just another sex scandal involving a high ranking member of the British Parliament who has ties to the Defence establishment ( that is itself is highly reminiscent of the 1963 Profumo affair) might in fact be covering up something that seems completely unrelated: a police chase of two escaped teenage prisoners that accidentally crossed over onto a U.S Air Force base sometime before. The script takes Mullen and those he encounters on a journey into the secret workings of the British government. As it reaches it climax the film asks an important question: when does a government's ability to protect secrets cross the line into becoming something much more darker, threatening and even criminal? By combining a fine cast, production values and a fine script Defence Of The Realm is able to create a realistic yet tense thriller. While it may be set and more or less about late Cold War UK politics, the film asks questions that are relevant today. All of these elements come together to make Defence Of The Realm far more then just another thriller and ever watchable nearly twenty-five years on from its original release.