billzweig

So what happens when you take fairly a accurate historical "pulp fiction" (A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, by Ben Macintyre) and turn it into total fiction movie pretending to be a historical drama? Add to this an idiotic editing with sudden charters jumping in and out of the plot like Jack out of a box, totally unrealistic acting worthy worst amateur production, "politically correct" corrections to real facts and a script that would be thrown in grange by any serious producer? Obviously what you get is a tedious piece of garbage, garbage outrageously using names of real people and pretending to represent real events.

I would give this production a generous 2 or even 3 stars if it was presented as a fiction spy thriller (not as the story of Philby). And I could be happy even with a poor production adhering to historical facts and real events without the unnecessary revision of facts; after all the story Soviet espionage is already fascinating enough.

In a way I am not surprised by the positive reviews. The public was slowly conditioned to accept this type of productions just as it was (and is) conditioned to accept the many other "corrections" to culture, history and thinking. Brainwashing always worked. Works much better in the modern world of internet , social media, and easily spread misinformation and when people are too lazy to check the facts.

Hard for me to understand why so many week ratings. This film has all that makes a good movie and a good adventure story. Great black and white photography shot on location in South Africa, excellent British actors (Jack Hawkins, Dennis Price, Bernard Lee), good story...and as of 2022 this 72 years old film does not at all appear dated and had lost nothing of its original power - unless you expect robotic monsters, flaming explosions, sub-second cuts and gallons of blood.

And this is not only an adventure in Africa, but the slowly unfolding story of human duplicity, greed and even a tragic romantic triangle.