Official Secrets

A superb account of Katherine Gun's heroic actions and the disgraceful attempt at reprisal by the UK government. There are some quite complicated issues here, particularly the legal defence case. These are explained with admirable clarity.The three principals - Keira Knightley as the conscience-striken source, Matt Smith as a journalist straight out of the Woodward and Bernstein school and Ralph Fiennes as a lawyer for whom Portia might have been a prototype - face an unusual challenge. Their characters are wholly admirable, but getting this across with credibility, rather than presenting them as unbelievable saints, is no easy task and they accomplish this very well.Alas, though, beyond that, the drama lacks subtlety. When the tension rises, the default is to have the characters start shouting at each other. I guess this can be laid at the feet of the director.So I backed off from 5*, but I wish I could have given 4½*.(2½ years later)I have upgraded from 4* to 5*. Whilst I maintain my complaint about the shouting, what I appreciated on this viewing is what a wonderful feelgood movie this is. Given the horrors in the world at the moment, I needed a feelgood movie to lift my spirits and this did so wonderfully.

“Don’t try this at home.”WARNING! No spoiler statements intended, yet my words get close.Read the following legal-disclaimer statement, shown at the movie’s end, then watch it, thoughtfully:“The events portrayed in this film are based on true events. Some aspects of this portrayal have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The characters portrayed have also been fictionalized for dramatic purposes, such that any resemblance between them and living individuals should not be inferred.”Official Secrets” begins improbably, develops a story based on an actual event, and ends in a manner to which it’s worth paying attention, regardless of your political preferences.The main character, Katherine Teresa Gun decides to become a spy.If you were faced with what Katherine discovered and made an impulsive and irrational decision and risked paying the prices she paid, would you act similarly?Now when you’re faced with smaller value-related issues and face smaller possible penalties, perhaps even daily, would you ---did you --- act similarly, if not proportionally?Our values are almost always different, in some way. What are your values?Watch the full move; think about it, then practice what you decide. The experience may help you become a little more of the person you’d like to be.Consider this: How believable is it that someone would be having a dialogue, with her husband (a non-British, middle-eastern husband), expressing to him what she does, while working as a translator, for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ: Britain’s signals intelligence agency), presumably with a top-secret security clearance, And, she’s sufficiently emotionally involved with what she’s read while working at GCHQ, she begins yelling at Prime Minister Tony Blair and calling him a liar, while he’s shown talking on her TV, while she’s still bound by the British Official Secrets Act of 1989.Such is how this story and movie begins.The docudrama-story might begin better, if Katherine were introduced as a calm, rational analyst whose objection begins with evidence-discovery and validation. Instead, she is introduced, unfortunately, but probably accurately, as a naïve, impulsive, irrational, inexperienced, poorly vetted and ineffectively selected young employee. How else might you begin writing this story?Perhaps with the antiwar activist, Jasmine her friend, might have been a better character with which to begin this movie. In the movie, she appears knowledgeable and competent, giving the impression she knows the rules of the game and how to play them.As the story worms its way through its tightly designed Gordian knot, it begins to take a more believable shape and gets intriguing.It increasingly begins to feel as if the U.S. and international intelligence culture helped write the script that Katherine exposed, to protect its behind. After all, “its” alleged evidence and recommendations are what got us into that war.Did the U.S. intelligence community dupe Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfield or did and Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfield dupe and control them? Or, was (is) there something else? If any of or all these circumstances occurred, the outcome is terrible --- the behavior unacceptable and future potential outcomes concerning, if not frightening.We need to know more about how the U.S. intelligence community interacts with the three branches of the U.S. Government and its citizens. And how the U.S. Government branches control the intelligent agencies and their international activities — if it does.Watch the movie, then self-discover and decide who you feel is in charge.Who is really pulling the strings?

I like Keira Knightley so I watched this movie one night when I was bored and found it on a streaming service, knowing nothing about it. I learned that it was based on real events surrounding the Bush administration leveraging intelligence against UN Security Council members to get them to green light taking us to war in Iraq, with UK backing. I watched a lot of news around that time and don't remember this making the news in the American media.Anyway, it was a very well made movie. I didn't see a book that exists surrounding this story.

The acting, writing & story are all great! A really interesting movie!

This was an excellent film and a disturbing story altogether familiar to us here in the US. It ranks with: Snowden and the Pentagon Papers and extremely similar to the investigative journalism reported in All the Presidents' Men and Spotlight. The difference is THIS is in the UK! Is this type of "crime" peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon communities? Or, does it occur everywhere but we just don't get it reported here? Is this what our governments were meant to be? Will it get worse? Without whistleblowers I am sure it will.

This is an informative film about Katherine Gun, a British translator for the GCHQ who leaked a classified NSA memo that would highlight the blackmail that was about to occur at the UN in the interest of obtaining a resolution to wage war on Iraq. In retrospect Saddam Hussein's execution is on par with the execution of any mass murderer. Nobody should lose sleep over it and some might even justifiably rejoice. On the other hand the war cost millions of lives, six trillion dollars and counting, and spawned terrorism on a scale not seen prior to the 2003 Iraq war. Had we known the cost in lives and treasure of removing Hussein by large scale military force we might have agreed to an exacting assassination to save us so much trouble. That such a scathing military operation was used means that obviously the primary aim of the war was not to just remove Saddam Hussein but to occupy the oil rich country.

Como soy ingles he mirado a la version ingles, pero sin embargo voy a probar escribir mi resena de esa pelicula en Castellano. La pelicula trata de una mujer muy valiente que ha decidido riesgar todo para hacer publicado las malissimas practicas pasando en la institucion donde trabajaba procesando residuos nucleares. La heroina sabia que si se continuaran tratar de esos residuos muy peligrosos sin adequado cuidado, seguramente va a pasar un disastre horroroso. De verdad - muchissimo mas gente debian saber lo que pasa en algunas de ese tipo de instituciones que para nada no funcionan como debian. Sin alguna duda- 100% recomiendo esa pelicula

Well acted & produced. My only dislike is that the dynamic range is too great. It can go from a semi audible whisper to a room shaking explosion.

DVDリージョンコード1で日本では再生不可能でした。DVD Region code 1 (USA) and cannot be played on a Japanese or UK DVD player. There is no explanation of this before purchase.

Well written, well acted, based on true story!

A movie which we should never miss watching! Real Story about events which could have been stopped from happening.