Official secrets actors8/7/2023 The invasion ensued and Katharine Gun, feeling like a failure, was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. The headlines spotlighting suspicions of potential improprieties did not work. Knowing what we know now over 15 years later after empty inspections is all for naught, but imagine discovering and being able to prove these illegal acts before a boot ever hits the ground and over 260,000 people would lose their lives in Iraq. That was the selling point for the UN vote, and the world bought it. Poor or manufactured United States reports insisted that Sadaam Hussein’s Iraq housed weapons of mass destruction and harbored the militaristic intent to use them. Remember the flimsy sabre-rattling scenarios that began the interminable War on Terror that still lingers today. The more Bright and his fellow virtuous colleagues (led by Matthew Goode’s war correspondent and Rhys Ifans’ old dog investigator) dug, the more legitimately the claims aligned, leading to a cover story challenging the publication’s own pro-Blair reputation. Image courtesy of IFC Filmsįrom there, Official Secrets shifts into a journalism film with polished reporter Martin Bright ( Doctor Who favorite Matt Smith) willing to print the sensitive findings and leading the charge to investigate the NSA email further for London’s Sunday newspaper The Observer. Katharine brings the email to a former colleague with connections to journalists. Frenzy arrives with fear and vehement disagreement. Bush, takes all of the incendiary material she sees and reads at work and throws the gasoline of TV news on top of it. Gun herself, a resolute subject of a nation split on supporting the potential war and skewing negative in a hurry against Tony Blair’s lockstep stances with President George W. To multisensory effect, moving subtitles and voiceover recitation in the film make the hushed communication on print and screen come alive with stirring outrage at this blatant effort to fix a crucial vote. resolution to authorize an invasion of Iraq led by America and Britain. The goal was to dig up political and personal blackmail material to use, if necessary, to force votes of agreement from those countries for a future U.N. brass requesting aid in a secret and illegal operation to surveil the United Nations offices of six lower nations. A chief of staff of a “regional targets” division of the National Security Agency named “Frank Koza” wrote an email to the U.K. On January 31, 2003, Gun landed a whopper from the United States. It is dirty work on headphones and keyboards. The agency and its multilingual techs specialize in deciphering and logging intercepted international communications of interest. That says worlds about the heroism of the woman and the powerful truths within the movie.Īlmost exactly a year before this moment, Katharine Gun was working for Government Communications Headquarters, abbreviated as the acronym GCHQ. Its central historical figure, Katharine Gun, played by Kiera Knightley, is standing in court awaiting the decision of “guilty” or “not guilty.” We, the audience, do not yet fully know the charge against her, but the tension of the room is not heavy enough to lower this woman’s chin in despair. Official Secrets begins with its ending in February of 2004. Gavin Hood’s Official Secrets gives righteous treatment to such a worthy story and builds a stoic thriller by layering its merits with an eye for accuracy.Ĭlear eyes in three prongs (personal, journalistic, and legal) are just what this movie is built on. This writer will always contend that if a chosen story needs too much of that glitz, where it cannot compel or entertain with its own facts, it should not be made into a movie in the first place. Most cinematic eras have their overuse of dramatic varnish in historical retellings as a means of painted shine for grabbing attention and producing supposedly heightened value.
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