This movie is for people like Jameela Jamil who said she was too busy learning about social justice to pay attention to ‘history’ like the Iraq war. Also, it’s for people who don’t know USA and UK are fat, ugly, arrogant, narcissistic warmongers. “We have a right to intervene in the Balkans. We should do the same in Iraq.” – that’s the American and British way, biggest criminals on this planet, somehow, have the right to intervene in sovereign countries.
There’s nothing apparent bad about the film but there’s also nothing to make it memorable or creative. It’s basically overly dramatic take on the story of Katherine Gun, an event that didn't change anything. She was charged with a crime and then the prosecutor dropped the case. That's the whole story. No suspense. The most interesting new information in this is the content of the memo itself and the spell check fiasco, all of which happened in the first 30 minutes. Everything after that it just about Katharine and her husband, which isn't particularly interesting.
The rest of the characters include veeery idealistic defense attorney and journalists. So there are no colorful characters in this cast. And why on Earth does this movie end with two male side characters talking about their friendship?
I guess moral of the story is all wars need a few lies to get going. But hey, Ellen DeGeneres said it’s okay that she's besties with George Bush, so who am I to say that Bush and Toni Blair should rightfully be rotting in the Hague.
Review by kiramanVIP 5BlockedParent2019-12-02T00:59:08Z
Official Secrets (2019)
Dir: Gavin Hood
Official Secrets is a somewhat political drama mystery set in 2003 where a British intelligence specialist leaks top secret information to the press regarding the Iraq war.
Personally i'm not a huge fan of films that are outright political dramas like this one, about the press and the media. Although I did quite enjoy this one, despite it falling flat quite a few times. This film does an incredibly good job of telling the story how it should be told, packed full of relevant information of the deception throughout the government. Although, I found that it struggled to get an actual emotional response from me personally. This film didn't really make me feel anything, I was just kind of 'meh' when the film ended. Official Secrets was definitely gripping, as we see the main character fighting with her own morals whilst receiving the fallout from her actions in the government, and with this being based on real events it can sometimes be quite difficult to pull off.
I'd say my only serious flaw with this film was Keira Knightley. I don't have anything against her but all of her characters just feel the same to me, and there's no real distinguishable characteristics for any of her characters to me. I feel as though you could just swap and change her characters from film to film and they'd still be the same character.
Overall this film was pretty good, but personally it's not one that I would choose to rewatch as it seems once you've seen this film, there's nothing particularly gripping or prominent enough to make you watch to come back for more. I'd definitely recommend this film to anyone with an interest in political drama, or more specifically the British government in the early 00s.