A Masterpiece!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

*** This review may contain spoilers *** *Plot and ending analyzed*Defense of the Realm isn't too bad, I think it is an interesting film with a premise that is very obscure. If you can understand some of the low-audible dialogue and the heavy-handed British lingo, then it's a worthwhile film. Defense of the Realm has newspaper reporter Gabriel Byrne digging up muck in England, where a Member of Parliament gets thrashed and eventually dismissed for supposedly associating with a KGB agent. It's hard to follow at times and the ending is a big let-down because during the entirety of the film there was an enigmatic suspense that was really showing itself. Still, it does manage to bring enough closure to allow for the full critique of the American nuclear program abroad, which is staffed by lunatics. As a political thriller is should satisfy the basic audience.Also recommended: The Parallax View (1974) Three Days of the Condor (1975) The Conversation (1974) All the President's Men (1976) Telefon (1977)

This film is set in 1984, and is highly indicative not only of the spirit of the time, but also of newspaper culture and practices of the 1980s.The cold war was in full swing in 1984. The Thatcher/Reagan collaboration was comforting to some, and deeply disconcerting to others. The threat of nuclear war was profoundly feared, and sex scandals dogged (but never completely undermined) the Conservative government. The presence of US Air bases in the UK was similarly a matter of national ambivalence.The newspaper industry was vastly different from today's industry. Each newspaper had its own print unit, and computers were the exception rather than the rule. The culture of lunchtime drinking and an all-male working environment were part of Fleet Street life - and of course in 1984 the major English newspapers and agencies were still based in Fleet Street.One scene in particular stands out as a symbol of past times: a character is retiring and all the newspaper staff congregate in the printing press for a noisy beating of printing blocks on tables. The practice was commonplace in the mid-1980s, and has died out since the introduction of new technologies. The changes had begun in the early 1980s, but were precipitated by the move of the Times and associated publications from Grays Inn Road (near Fleet Street) to Wapping in 1986.I watched Defence of the Realm for the first time in 1987 and since then I've come back to it about once a year; I notice something new every time. I'm a huge fan of Denholm Elliott and he is impressive as always, playing a washed-out hack with a drink problem (sadly all too common among journalists of the late 20th century). His character Vernon Bayliss dies in suspicious circumstances while working on a secret story, which Gabriel Byrne's character Nick Mullen pursues. Byrne is at the beginning of his film career and he deserved more recognition than he got for this film; his performance is solid and convincing as a journalist caught in the dilemma between the need to sell news and the need to report the truth. Assisted by Nina (Greta Scacchi), the secretary of an MP who is being framed, Nick finds himself watched, followed, and threatened by government security personnel. Scacchi's character is reserved but brave, and her performance, like Byrne's, is understated. This is absolutely necessary to prevent the film slipping into melodrama, and is no doubt the source of comments in other reviews about the British character of the whole film. Other comments in previous reviews, such as scorn for supposed America-bashing, are anachronistic. The film's political concern is not with America's status as a superpower, but with Britain's participation in undemocratic means of maintaining the defence of the realm.The film is best understood as a comment on its own historical context rather than as a universal or timeless thriller. It shows us where we have come from and points to features that have developed in new ways in contemporary culture (e.g. the importance of fear of the 'Other' now expressed as a fear of Islam rather than of Soviet powers). The musical score is excellent; it adds greatly to the sense of danger and suspense and of course contributes to the historical feel of the film. The script is similarly sharp and suitable; nothing is wasted.I've enjoyed this film over and over, since shortly after its first release until the present day. I lived in London throughout the 1980s and remember very well the zeitgeist: the hopes and fears of the decade. The Berlin wall came down in 1989 and Thatcher lost her power in 1991; since then everything has changed. But in 1984, the world of Defence of the Realm was the world we lived in.

This is very much the Mixture As Before which wheels out the Usual Suspects, Bannen, Elliott, Calder, etc, and lets them meander through ten reels of Is He, Isn't He, Was He, Wasn't He, Will He, Won't he til it figures the punters have had it up to here at which time it throws in an ambiguous ending. It was a good twenty years since the 'Profumo' affair so the Producers were fairly safe in recycling the idea of a Government Minister and a KGB Officer sharing the sexual favours of the same hooker as the tip of an increasingly larger iceberg. Gabriel Byrne is the 'investigative' journo who discovers, surprise, surprise, that there's more to the story than romps in the hay and minor cover-ups and the whole thing is fairly undemanding for Multiplex regulars who can swallow it whole without missing a beat of their popcorn mastication.

This movie is a good example of the British film industry quietly making good movies that nobody saw. Brought out at the height of the cold war , as far as i know it was only ever seen on channel 4 (which kept the british film industry alive). The plot is hardly revolutionary. A journalist (a hard bitten Gabriel Byrne)stumbles upon a coverup by the british goverment, of a nuclear accident on an american airbase (which actually happened in the 1950s, but thats another story). Shades of disaster at silo seven, presidents men and forth protocol. But where this movie is different is the feeling that THEY are following you, helped by an understated yet eerie soundtrack. Byrne is followed by a car from the american airbase, it crowds him off the road and all of its windows are seen to be blacked out. He phones the American embassy and hears his phone being tapped.We dont even see the watchers untill the very end of the movie (which weakens it slightly) Even the Kangaroo court at the end of the movie is reminicnent of Franz Kafkas THE TRIAL. This is the X FILES without ufos, yet Byrne and scacchi are more that a little reminicent of mulder and scully (who also break the rule and dont fall in love on screen). Helped by fine performances from Denholm Elliot and Fulton Mackay(Robert Maxwell?), it evokes a patina of the hidden state only equilled in the uk by EDGE OF DARKNESS and Ken Loache`s HIDDEN AGENDA. its not the best thriller ever made in the UK, but it deserves a damn sight more attention than its received. See it , before THEY do.....