Unclear and Present Danger - Hidden Agenda

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

In this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John tackle yet another movie about the Troubles, the 1990 film “Hidden Agenda.” This one, however, is more concerned with British politics than the well-being of the Irish people. They discuss Margaret Thatcher, talk a little about colonialism and the intra-European origins of racism, and complain about the dearth of well-made political thrillers. You can watch “Hidden Agenda” for free on Tubi.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!The New York Times for Wednesday November 21, 1990.Cedric Robinson’s “Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition”Alan J. Pakula’s 1974 film “The Parallax View.”

Paul was not involved with terrorists. He was too smart to be manipulated. This man, Sullivan, was no run-of-the-mill person you could just blow away. He was an American lawyer with an international reputation. Am I wrong, or is it illegal to kill people and try to steal a country? Emdale Film Corporation presents Francis McDormand Brian Cox, Brad Durif. Hidden Agenda. Every government has one.

in present danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write a column for Gawker, and I write the newsletter

on popular front. And I'm working on a book about American politics in the early 90s. Today we are talking about the film Hidden Agenda, a 1990, I'm sorry, 1990 thriller out of the UK, starring, sorry, I need to pull up my little bit of information

of who is in this movie, starring Brian Cox, Brad Durf, why can I, why did I just forget? Francis McDormann? Francis McDormon. I was like, why did I forget her? I just watched him Macbeth. My Zetterling, John Benfield, Jim Norton, and an actress from Game of Thrones, who I immediately recognize as Michelle Farley, as one of the journalists, the Irish journalist, who has kind of a bit part in the film. A quick little plot synopsis. Here, I'll say before I even start with this, that if you have not seen the movie, you should see the movie, because although we talked about the plot, and we talked about plot points, the topic of the discussion is more sort of things that we

drew from the film. So you should see it first. I watched it on Tooby, which is one of those weird free services that you just have to watch commercials and you get the thing for free. And I'm sure you can find it on iTunes or Amazon for rent. Plot synopsis. In Ireland, American lawyer, Ingrid Jester and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against.

against the Northern Irish during the troubles. But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jester teens up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues. The film was not that successful, was pretty cheap,

three million pounds, but didn't really make its money back. But my understanding is, is it was pretty well reviewed and well received from, by critics. Ebert gave it three stars. And the sort of the general assessment of this film 30 years after it was made is that it is a solid thriller of the period, kind of the exact kind of thing that is no longer made, but the kind of movie that this podcast covers the low budget low to mid budget

absolutely solid political thriller John what did you think we were we were oh go ahead sorry no let me let me redo that John what do you think

I like this movie a lot I think that this movie is a little bit more complicated and really than some of the Hollywood films that we've watched. I think that it goes into like considerable detail about, you know, the conflict, the political actors in it, the way the, you know, it played itself out of the police forces in civil society.

So you get to kind of get this realistic picture of what the troubles were like, more realistic picture of what the troubles were like than in movies like, you know, Patriot Games. and yeah I think that the script is excellent I think that Brian Cox and Francis McDormand are both wonderful actors and you know Brian Cox gives a great performance and I think so does so does McDormand so yeah I thought this is a really quality thriller movie and I really like the level of detail and realism about the underlying conflict that's like it's kind of becomes the backdrop of the movie. But yeah, I mean, the beginning of the movie shows like an orange walk, like one of these Protestant sectarian parades that were, you know, that happened

in Belfast and in Northern Ireland and kind of famous for being highly provocative and provoking, you know, sectarian and violence. So yeah, no, I've seen, I actually seen this movie once before, and I liked it even better the second time. The thing about Brian Cox in this movie, and I feel like Brian Cox and everything I've seen him in is that he has this, I feel like his whole energy is kind of like, I am willing to do anything up to and including killing your entire family to do what I need to do. This sort of like, not like aggressive ruthlessness, but like quiet ruthlessness, like absolute willingness to do it needs to be done.

And it just makes, there's a scene in the film when he's confronting one of the Irish, you know, one of the British police paramilitary. I'm not really sure what the nature of that force was. Okay, those are the royal all-stercodestabular, which is the kind of paramilitary police force of Northern Ireland. Right. So he's confronting. him. And just that entire scene, it felt as if at, it felt as if at any moment Brian Cox

was just going to like beat the shit of this guy. And that's sort of like, that's, that's the energy Cox seems to have as an actor. I love it. I think it's great. And I found, I found him especially just sort of super compelling every time he was on the screen. Also, Brad Duref, he was the American who's killed but I love Brad Durf I think he's a fine actor and I was very happy to see him with his sort of like you know shaggy hair yeah I don't know I haven't seen what else has he been in

so the thing you know I now I kind of he's starting to look familiar he was the thing you will recognize him from is Lord of the Rings yeah he's he's greener worm tongue and Lord of the Rings but you'll see he pops up everywhere he's he's one of those actors who It's just always working. Yeah.

Yeah, so should we look at the newspaper? We should look at the newspaper. As usual, we're going to look at the front page of the New York Times for the day this movie was released. That day is November 21st, 1990. That's a Wednesday. And so I have it pulled up right here. There is, funny enough, a Thatcher headline. and a Thatcher-related headline on the front page.

It's in the top right, Thatcher unable to eliminate foe and party election. Second ballot set next week. Apparently, Margaret Thatcher faced a leadership battle for control of the, or leadership of the conservative party, and it wasn't exactly the case that she was going to win it. I don't actually have no idea how this. I think she lost. I think this was it for Maggie

because she was not the head of the party in the next election. She was replaced by John Major shortly after this this oh, well that's really strange. Yeah, so she was replaced by John Major.

you're not long after this um and uh she wasn't this that she i don't know if she stayed in parliament but she definitely wasn't leader of the party now just quickly quickly looking at this it seems as if she her hostility to um uh the to the euro basically helped um helped uh harm her position within the conservative party uh apparently i did And I noticed she had a very low approval rating throughout her prime ministership. So I'm sure I'm sure that did not help either, even as the conservative party, of course, did pretty well during her time. Her low approval rating and internal conflict will be the thing that prompts the leadership challenge. I feel like I say this every time we touch something that or tackle something that touch with UK politics.

I just need to learn more about UK politics. I just don't. I don't care that much, but, yeah. It's very interesting because, I mean, and the movie kind of gets into it, is the, like, the post-war rise of the Labor Party. I mean, the shift, I mean, there was a huge shift in the United States between, you know, the kind of new, what we call the New Deal Order, and then the rise of Reagan, neoliberalism.

But in some ways, the shift in Britain was even more dramatic because, you know, you had after the war a real kind of socialism in Britain, we had the National Health Service. You had lots of nationalization of industry as a consequence of the war and after the war. And the rollback of that under Thatcher was dramatic. and the you know we think of you know Britain as a fairly conservative place and the monarchy we don't think of it as a kind of a socialist country

but I mean the the prime ministerships socialist prime ministerships you know contained real Marxists and you know they were obviously constrained by politics and became moderate in various ways but you know they were serious about nationalizing parts of industry and serious about trying to you know create a socialist economy and thatcher's privatization like radically changed the economy and the political economy of the country and you know

in ways that were super traumatic so my yeah I think and then you know the the conflict to northern island was also very interesting and complicated but yeah it's it I think the post-war British political history till that I mean New labor is sort of kind of interesting, but like from the war to Thatcher, I think is really interesting. I mean, there was lots of strikes, how the government managed that, and the process of decolonialization, which didn't really happen in Northern Ireland, is also really interesting. So, yeah, I recommend British politics. I think they're kind of fascinating. I think that can be it for the front page of the Times.

Let's talk about this movie. I feel like we've tackled the troubles before Patriot Games. I feel like another one of these movies involved in as well. But this, for as much as it has, you know, it takes place in Belfast, Belfast, it doesn't really deal with Irish politics, you know, for their own sake. It's much more about the UK and about this conspiracy theory that is sort of unraveled over the course of the film that the, you know, a cabal of conservative politicians and financiers and, you know, whoever got together to destabilize the labor government.

of the late 70s and install Thatcher into power. That's sort of like, that's, that be, the, much of the, the, the plot is driven by the existence of this tape that the, um, that Brad Derv's character was going to recover or already had. I already had him to meet, um, meet an IRA guy. Uh, and he was killed in the, you know, the paramilitaries took the tape. And so it's sort of a getting. this tape is kind of what is driving the action in the movie, and the tape contains the details of this conspiracy. But again, you know, Ireland ends up being more scenery than anything else.

The movie is about the conspiracy. It's about the effort to unravel it. And it's, I mean, insofar that it's about Ireland, it's sort of, it's, it's, it's, it dramatizes the sheer amount of like lawlessness that the British government um applied against uh you know again in Northern Ireland in its effort to pacify um the IRA yeah I mean so the the the you know the reason why the main characters are are in Northern Ireland is that they're working on kind of like a independent report about atrocities committed by the British security forces And, like, you know, so they uncover torture. And then they're approached by this Republican.

When I say a Republican now, listeners, I mean IRA. I don't mean Republicans like in America. But a Republican journalist who wants to talk to him about the shoot-to-kill policy, which was a policy that was, you know, alleged but did actually exist for security forces to not arrest suspected IRA members, but just to assassinate them. So, you know, there was a lot of cooperation between the, there's lots of different actors in the conflict.

There's the British Army. There's loyalist paramilitaries, which are, you know, Protestant and Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. There's Republican paramilitaries, which are largely Catholic and are nationalists in one Ireland, to reunite. There's the Royal Ulster Constabulary,

which is a kind of militarized police force located in Northern Ireland. And there was lots of cooperation between the Loyos paramilitaries and the security forces committing assassinations, reprisals against the Republicans. I think it's a good idea

to just give a little bit background to the conflict. You know, the trouble The conflict in Ireland is very old, but the troubles, you know, really took off in this, after the repression of what they call the civil rights campaign in the 60s, which was an effort by Catholic, Catholics in Northern Ireland to get certain social and civil rights, you know, an extremely poor population. There's lots of gerrymandering and efforts to dilute their votes. And, you know, they actually look to American civil rights movement as a inspiration or a, you know, as a model for their movement. And, you know, this was met with repression because there was, you know, accusations on the loyalist side that this was all. infiltrated by Republican groups and the IRA and, you know, to a certain degree there was crossover, but this was an attempt to do a more peaceful and political process, and this

turned into an armed kind of guerrilla conflict. And the process of trying to pacify it was extremely violent. There was lots of bombings on all sides, and, you know, I think the movie's really great at showing the militarization of Belfast, like the barbed wire, the armored cars, these sort of fortified ghettos that the Catholics live in. You know, it was a really dire situation. And it was something that the British left, which, you know, this movie is a product of the British left. you know we saw corbin it was a very controversial you know in his capacity as anti-imperialist was quite sympathetic um to the to the IRA which was obviously very controversial in

britain because of their bombings and assassinations they tried to assassinate margaret thatcher so the british left especially the british far left always had sympathies with the IRA but in general the British public you know was pretty aghast at the terrorism but yeah that's just like a little background on the conflict itself it's interesting to just place that in the context of decolonization globally right sort of like what I think of when I think of I guess the troubles is I think of the French attempt to hold on to Algeria right I think of the efforts that pacify Algeria, you know, the decade prior, prior to the beginning of the troubles. And so that's, I don't have any, like, conclusion there, but it's just sort of, I think

I, my wife said this when we were watching this, when we're watching the film, I think that Americans, especially Americans who aren't Irish, have no Irish heritage, who are just sort of like, you know, approaching this all very much as observers without any real. background knowledge don't normally think of the UK and Ireland in terms of that kind of dynamic and it is interesting to watch a film that very much evokes you know the Battle of Algiers at part at parts I'll say also real quick one thing it also evokes and there's a scene where the Irish Republican journalist is sort of paramilitaries, British paramilitaries, you know, bang down her apartment door and take her from her home while her child's there.

You know, that, that's like reminiscent of like an ordinary police raid in the United States. A police raid of, you know, maybe a public housing project or, you know, predominantly black, South Central L.A., right? Darrell Gates era, and it's just interesting, if you're going to take the lens of the U.K. as a colonial power in Ireland, which is the lens you ought to take,

then comparing that use of violence to how American police behave in probably black neighborhoods, I think actually offers some clarity on how on how at least the people in those neighborhoods perceive their position in the society. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that there's a lot of commonality in terms of the tactics used

and also just the desperate poverty of those areas. I mean, this was just like, you know, the Catholic population was just systematically excluded from the society. And that was part of the beginning of the revolt. I mean, there is the nationalist aspect of the revolt of trying to, you know, reunite the country, but they're, you know, the, a lot of the, the, the, uh, the unhappiness and, uh, comes from just the, the sheer terrible economic prospects and, you know, lack of a future in this very bleak environment. So yeah, I mean, I thought of that too when I was watching the film and I was like, yeah, you know, like, the policing tactics. of this are military and it's a terror a conflict with terrorists but i'm like you know this is not completely unlike you know american history or the use of um you know militarized police and in recent history right no not raids that kind of thing yeah exactly uh yeah um and it's

exacerbated by you know it's not exactly racial but the hatred um you know the sectarian hatred is really quite powerful and you know a real it was a real divide like you know they were just Catholic and Protestant two different societies living side by side that you know we're not integrated and had a lot of hatred and and fear of each other but yeah I think that parallel makes a lot of sense I also thought about South Africa when I was watching you know with like you know apartheid South Africa watching this, you know, with all those kind of like armored cars patrolling the streets and so on and so. The hatred isn't racial, but I do think it's worth saying that there is an argument that has been made,

and I think it's more or less on target, that the English colonialism, English prejudice towards the Irish sort of like that, that dynamic is part of the constellation of currents in European history that, like, influenced the idea of race. It helped create the idea of race. Cedric Robinson in black Marxism calls it European racialism. Not quite the racism that we would recognize in the United States or that you would recognize in South America, the Caribbean, but kind of one of the antecedents of that sort of clad, that, that, that, uh, antithes of that ideology and of that system of,

domination. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, uh, the history of British subjugation of Ireland was like near genocidal, which, you know, I don't think you need to be a, a raving Irish nationalist to come to that conclusion. The complicating thing is, is that the residents of the north the protestant residents of the north have been there for quite some time it is not um like the pinaire in in in um in uh in algeria who had been there for you know just over a hundred years or so um you know the the the roots are longer lasting so the claims of the over the territory are quite you know fraught because of that um so yeah i mean the i think that the movies dealing with the detail and the of the conflict and showing the violence showing i think

just showing yeah as i'd say like the the urban landscape and how you know the conflict sort of scarred it and i think also like there's one scene where that i really like in the movie where they go to a Republican club in some poor area of Belfast and they meet because they're trying to the IRA has this tape that has the secret conspiracy on it and the IRA got it because this British defector who got fed up of being part of these like sciop and death squad groups gave it to them so they go to this Republican club which is like a bar in this you know run down area of Belfast and they meet a Sinn Féin rep who kind of, you know, is very friendly but just sort of chats them up with, you know, IRA propaganda and there's like a Republican folk music band playing.

I just thought that like its attention to politics was really fine and that it showed like, you know, the places in which politics happens, like these clubs. and, you know, back rooms and so and so forth and shows, like, the real kind of, like, civil society infrastructure of it, and I really appreciated that level of detail, and it kind of, like, made the movie come alive, and sort of, like, made it feel, even though there was something arguably always a little bit preposterous

about, like, a conspiracy plot in a movie, like, it just, those, these touches of, like, of political realism in the movie and just showing, like, how, these groups work and are integrated into their communities and showing like the culture of the police and their like their attitudes and so and so forth I thought like really made I think it makes the movie like much more worth watching and interesting than it had it been like okay straightforwardly this is sort of conspiracy thriller it was like it's like really puts the political and political thriller because

Because it's so kind of aware of its, you know, of the environment that all these things happen. I think that's right. It's not, for its central driving, you know, through line might be this conspiracy theory, but it's not, it's not like a Baroque conspiracy movie. I love Oliver Stones, JFK. I think it's a really, I think it's a fine film. But it's 100, it's like, it's Baroque and it's, you know, it's convoluted and it's sort of like, it feels like the, it feel, watching it

feels like you're stepping into the, into a fever dream. And this does not feel like that. Even if, even if it is, you know, somewhat similar to its conspiracy minded approach to recent history, it, it has that, like you said, that touch of realism, um, that, um, that, touch of this being a lived-in world in politics being a being something not simply the machinations of elites but like actual ordinary

regular people are committed to these things. Yeah, that was cool. And yeah, and they show like the journalists and the, yeah, that's I just thought that that was like one of the more valuable parts of the movie. The showing

of what Belfast and the Troubles look like really being shot there and just showing like the working the everyday working of politics i thought was really cool i think that like yeah all over soan's an interesting comparison because in some of this ways this movie's like a thinking man's jfk because it's like a more plausible conspiracy in a way it's not some kind of like shadowy figures like you know it's very clear who would stand to benefit from this and it's it takes place in a more plausible world Um, but yeah, I think that there, Ken Loach, the director who's, you know, a left wing director and was

closely associated with Jeremy Corbin, you know, his politics, I mean, I think Stone has really, I don't even know if you could say he's on the left anymore, but like he's a certain, there's a certain brand of like, I think this was bigger in the 90s than it is now. It's like a conspiratorial leftism, which is really like kind of obsessed with the idea that there's these like cabals, like not like a structural leftism that's like, well, this is the way politics work, but it's like there's literally cabals of the ruling class, like making these like decisions to do things for their own profit and, and, uh, you know, consciously manipulating politics and, uh, and, uh, we're.

World Affairs. I think that conspiratorial left tradition, Stone has it. This movie has a little bit of it. And, you know, my theory, okay, so I just want to say that the conspiracy theories in this movie are kind of credible. Like, there was something weird going on. So Harold Wilson, who was the labor prime minister before Thatcher. And there was a rumor created by, like MI5 or my 6 that he was a KGB plant and then it seemed like there's all these different whispering about that there had been some kind of like

coup thoughts of a coup against him there was lots of strikes going on the elite the business elite was very unhappy the military was very unhappy the intelligence service is very happy about him and thought maybe started to believe their own lies with the KGB thing something weird happened and there was some I was just reading about this some weird royal army exercise where they took over or that no,

they took over Heathrow Airport on the pretext of fighting the IRA, but it actually, like, they didn't inform the prime minister and Harold Wilson interpreted this as being like sort of like the army showing that it could like act without him. So something weird was going on and lots of serious people. believe that there may have been some contemplation of a coup or some attempt at something with Harold Wilson. So I'm just going to say that. It's not, it's not that crazy. Something weird was going on. But I do think that the movie, so the movie, this is in 1990, the labor power has been, the labor party has been out of power since, you know, for a decade. Thatcher has completely

rolled back, you know, or largely rolled back what, you know, labor had accomplished. I mean, no one's been able to get rid of the National Health Service, but, you know, roll back a lot of what labor accomplished, you know, after the war and a way of privatizations, and it's very traumatic. There's lots of unemployment, you know, and Britain sort of deindustrializing. And I think that the Labor Party is just going mad in this period. I mean, they had, and I think my theory is that this movie, that these Harold Wilson theories served as the mythology in a way to explain labor's loss of power. In a similar way that the Oliver Stone JFK theory is like, why did Vietnam happen? And they're like, well, and it's this dayus ex-mocking it. Well, like, well, because they

killed JFK. And I mean, that's absurd. JFK was a cold warrior. I don't think LBJ and JFK's policies on Indo-China really had that much light in between them. JFK oversaw, I mean, it was complicated, but he was at the president when they had the coup to overthrow Ziam, and Ziam was assassinated. They did all the sorts of horrible Cold War things we complain about, and we say, oh, I can't believe the U.S. did the coups and this. I mean, there's a Bay of Pigs, everything.

So the whole myth that, like, some evil core of the security stuff, They got rid of JFK and that's why we had Vietnam and so and so forth. I think these are like sort of coping mechanisms for a left that found itself out of power, unable to influence policy with limited political prospects. And the imagination turned to explanations for that, which were there were some sort of plot that prevented, you know, that that is the reason why the conservatives are in power i mean and not let's not think about like well you know there was all these different crises economic crises and you know there's a

political offer to deal with them that was popular got a mandate you know so on so forth so i do think you know some critics said the movie they they said okay the movie was sort of typically British and that it kind of made the Northern Irish conflict a side show of like what the real important thing was which was you know like what was happening in British politics kind of I mean as much as I like the movie

kind of a fair criticism from a political standpoint because like yeah it's just like the the IRA exists to to give this tape that's supposed to fix labor party's problems and fix the British left's

problems their own struggle is sort of put aside. Like, they're just like, well, we have something to help you. We, Irish, have something to help you with. So, like, I get the country criticism of the movie. I'm always a little bit, I mean, I like, for the sake of movies, you know, conspiracy plots are great. But I'm always somewhat suspicious of the function of conspiracy as part of the political imagination and how it's a, you know, a way of.

not doing real analysis or a way of like retreating into fantasy to avoid you know political realities yeah i mean i i don't have i'm not sure if i have anything to say about that with regards to um uk politics but i think you can certainly see that very thing happening in real time right now in the united states with the way that conspiracies about a stolen election conspiracies about you know the deep state or what have you serve to both serve as a cope for um a sizable portion of the right wing but also serve as sort of like a galvanizing myth right for for future action for doing something about it and that's sort of i mean that's sort of interesting thing about conspiracy theories um is that they can they can both immobilize right sort of like if if if there is

some shadowy cabal, right, right, to use JFK as an example again, if there is some shadowy cabal of the mob and the Cubans and gay libertines in New Orleans, who are, who are, I really can't wait to talk about that movie. The whole homophobic part of that is just really wild. Yeah, that's kind of glossed over. We'll get to that movie soon enough, and I can't wait. It's a wild movie. But if that shadowy cabal exists and it has so much power that it can sort of assassinate a U.S. president with impunity or depose a labor government with impunity, then why bother doing anything?

Like, what could you possibly do to fight back? But on the other hand, that's the immobilizing element of conspiracies. But on the other hand, you know, positive. that the current order is illegitimate, right? That sort of like, actually, the people might be on your side, right? They've just been stymied by this cabal. They've been stymied by

these elites can serve to energize on the flip side. Can serve to sort of like fortify you against fortify you for a political battle of some kind. Yeah, I think it's like, it's just

sort of like, you know, you have to explain your loss to yourself in a way that doesn't you know that doesn't lead to just depression and humiliation so sometimes you're just like they cheated or like they're they're crooks or you know like obviously there's different degrees of this and it reaches really psychotic levels to to a certain degree but these sorts of these sorts of notions are are pretty common in politics um but yeah I mean, at one point in the movie, Brian Cox's character actually, like, confronts the very posh, you know, intelligence guys who, um, you know, basically admit to him, even though they've been assassinating people to cover this up, they basically admit to him that, you know, the, yeah, we did that. And we had to because, like, the country demanded it. Um, and they give him their whole philosophy of reasons of state. And he's not convinced. But he's not convinced. But, but, ultimately they try to blackmail him and ultimately it works i mean he he drops the investigation which i think is actually a very interesting ending where he doesn't uncover the conspiracy

it ends on a very ambiguous ambivalent way where he kind of abandoned francis mcdormand whose you know boyfriend was murdered and he's like look i'm just a cop i like can't get involved with this wild stuff and he goes back to Britain they charge the guys who literally committed the murder but not you know the people who ordered it or the whole system behind it I think you know obviously like that's where the movie sort of goes back into having a more structural dimension where it's like yeah you know like the cop wouldn't be able to do that like he would just he's like this is this is my function in the system and like I'm not going to be able to like bring it all down So, like, even though he's a hero for part of the movie, and he's very dogged in trying to get his, you know, build the case, get the truth out, like, at some point, he gives up and he, and he doesn't go for it, which, you know, I thought it was pretty smart and, you know, in some ways an unsatisfying ending because he kind of just walks off in the airport.

But I think in some ways, like, again, brings the realism to the fore and also kind of, you know, as much as much as this person had good intentions, their function in the system limited, you know, what they could actually do. And he's blackmail and he just, he just has to, you know, kind of slink away. And, yeah, so, you know, it's kind of a desperate and bleak ending, which sort of fits the overall scenery of the movie. But, yeah, it's not like they blow the cover over of all these people. It's just sort of like they get away with it. It reminds me, it reminds me very much of the ending to Alan Pacula's The Paralax View, which is which I mean is sort of another fever dream of a movie but ends right like if you if listeners

have not seen it I highly recommend it has a very great performance by Warren Beatty but it ends more or less with the conspirators triumphant right they they they and sort of the whole kind of conceded the ending is that do you really expect that some journalists is going to be able to to uncover this right it's sort of like I think I think the Paralyx view is filmed and release after all the president's men. I think it's that trilogy of films just clute all the president's men and the parallax view.

And the parallax view in this weird way is like this answer to all the president's men where all the presidents of men the dogged journalists do uncover the conspiracy, the real live conspiracy in the White House. And then this is sort of like, come on, come on now.

Did you really expect that this should even be possible? And in a similar way, for as much as Brian Cox's character is like I think sincerely and generally like morally offended

by what he's learned and in his heart of hearts would like to do something about it it's sort of like well he's just ultimately he's just a detective he's a cop

and what you know is he really going to risk his life his career for the off chance that you might be able to do what, embarrass these people.

And I agree that it was, I actually, as a fan of movies that just sort of end, right, that don't like have any, you know, 15 minute drawn out, you know, denouement, but just sort of like, this is it. I appreciated that that's how the film. ended and it was a another touch of realism um in this conspiracy thriller because the you know again the other to go back to j f k the other way to end the movie it's just with like some you know great speechifying and you've uncovered the whole thing and um so on and so forth yeah i mean it's not a hollywood movie which like it's valuable sometimes because it takes away

like the conventions of needing to like have those satisfying endings that hollywood audiences expect and uh you know the tagline of the movie is the truth can never be buried but that's not really what the movie the message that comes away from the movie the the messages that the truth can very much be buried um so yeah i mean i think yeah i think that this this is a cut above. I mean, you know, I don't know if it is as. I also just want to talk about the style of the film. There's something very like the type of realism of it and the sort of, there's not a lot of diet. What is dietic scores? That means it's in the movie or not in the movie. The non-diate, there's no, there's no non-dietic score and there's very little music at all. And like, it's, um, it gives,

gives it this kind of very hectic feeling there's something disjointed about the movie's sense of time and like it makes it you know stressful to watch and adds to the suspense but it's like it doesn't build drama in exactly the same way that like an accelerating American thriller does and I think it's like kind of actually a little makes it a little difficult to get into it first but then actually you sort of see that artistically it makes a lot of sense with the subject matter but um yeah i think that where was i going with this i think that it's um yeah it's lack of like fulfilling certain thriller conventions really works and makes it like feel like a more serious movie than some of the other movies we've watched yeah well there are these like little cinema

veraite touches throughout yeah exactly at the very beginning well not the very beginning but sort of the next scene after the parade it's this press conference with Brad Durif and Francis McDormons characters and their kind of colleagues and that scene is very much film like an actual news press conference with sort of the the the some of the confusion and a tactic and people trying to answer and answer questions and ask questions and the the um the you know civil liberties folks are our our our cast of characters aren't confident assured uh officials they're sort of fumbling for papers and sort of you know they're they're they play these people as like actual, you know, basically bureaucrats who are just doing their job.

So I thought, I think you're right, those, there are a lot of those touches in the movie, the scene where Brad Durf's character and his sort of Irish driver are killed by the British paramilitaries is also similarly, it's not, it's not shot in this kind of like dramatic way. It's very, no, no, no, it's very much, it's very quick. And one of the paramilitary is after their car crashes and runs over and shoots by Derb's character in the back. It's very unceremonious. It's very sort of just like, you know, a final bullet just because that's what you do.

But there's no real, there's no oomf to it or anything. And I think you're right that those touches really complement and help sort of balance out the conspiratorialness of the plot. sort of like it's sort of it it knowing that you have this wild claim coming in the movie the hype kind of the i wouldn't say hyper realism but the strong orientation towards realism um helps helps counterbalance that and i thought it i thought it was compelling i mean there's a in that press conference scene there's just the moment where you can tell a handheld camera is used the kind of track i think francis mcdorman's character and it was at that point where

kind of like, oh, this is a bit more, this might be a bit more interesting than I think, that I anticipated, because it was not the kind of touch I was expecting from, from this kind of movie. For sure, for sure. Yeah. And yeah, so I think it was like, it had, it had aspirations to make, like, some serious political commentary. I think it did its, you know, it conducted its filmmaking in such a way that wouldn't get in the way of that with melodrama and, you know, some sort of ridiculous action movie cliches. So I think, like, those choices all really worked. I mean, at this date, how does it feel as political commentary? I mean, the conflict itself has changed so much. Britain has changed quite a deal. Is it dated? I don't know. I think I had the,

historically i find it very interesting um i think that it's not something that we ought to forget i mean the conflict has sort of come to some better resolution it's not quite as desperate as what what it was as it once was um but yeah i think that like as a piece of as a historical document and just as a you know a pretty fine movie um i think it really works I think that like I kind of like for some reason I'm very I don't know if this is like a nerd this is probably just like a nerd quality but I'm very attracted to these like forgotten like not that the troubles are forgotten but like how many like how many movies are made now about this kind of thing like these these these these these corners of the world that have these complicated and interesting politics um you know conflict that have deep historical roots and like there's not that many films now that like deal with these sort of things in serious in an interesting way i mean this movie is tendentious it has a very clear socialist left-wing message which not a huge problem for me but you know but i think it's

also still like a fine movie even if you don't quite share its politics but i mean how many like we we often end up having this lament but it's just like why can't we make movies about these sorts of like i would love to watch a movie about like cashmere or like just things i don't know very much about or like yeah like just i mean it might be difficult for political reasons but um yeah like i just want to have more movies that sort of not didactic but like you know, you can get a sense of what's going on in the world and the stakes of these different conflicts in places that you don't necessarily think about every day. So, yeah, I mean, like, I really appreciate these films that deal with these sorts of conflicts.

I would watch a lot more of them if they were out. So I know we always end up with this kind of old man. They don't make them like they used to. But, I mean, like, it's too bad. I mean, like, these, these, I think as cinema, it's a, these are compelling backdrops and very good dramatic backdrops. And they're also just on an intellectual level, like, interesting subject matters that, that, you know, reward thought and research and kind of like prompt you to think about politics and history. So, you know, I think that this movie works on that level. And I, I mean, can you think of a?

a recent movie that does this? I've been trying to think of one and I can't. I mean, I can't even really think of a recent serious, like, American political thriller, right, that deals with American politics any kind of interesting way. It's just sort of, it's a combination, right,

of, like, mid-budget movies just aren't made anymore. It's just, like, not a thing that, right, and what's an independent movie is if they are if anything close to them gets made it's for streaming it's like a streaming series but um yeah but those are like two entertainment or like they're okay I will say that some of the streaming stuff like does try to find because I think just in the search for content they're like I can imagine them

trying something like an IRA series or something like that like because they just need to find something to write about and there is some audience. for that kind of thing like British Isles and Ireland like has an American audience that like is interested in that kind of stuff but like yeah there's just it's not it's it's always like really I just watched that Munich movie and it was it's just like a little dumb down like there's just not like it's not done with the same level of sophistication it's like you know like it's it's It's pretty, like, level A history, and then, you know, there's very, very idealistic people trying to do their best in these situations. It's just, like, I don't know.

Not that I think everything needs to be gritty and cynical, but I think that, like, I do miss, you know, a political thriller that has a kind of hard-boiled perspective. Let's put it that way. Yeah. No, I asked you why, I'm just looking at this list of recent political thrillers, and it's sort of it's, there's a lot of, I mean, the 90s up here, really are kind of the last great decade for this sort of thing. I mean, in the 2010s you had a movie like the Ides of March, which is terrible. It's not good. You have, you have some thrillers, but they kind of, a movie like Hidden Agenda or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, you have. or even something much less sophisticated, like enemy of the state from later in the decade, it just doesn't really get made anymore. And a part of me wonders if it's a generational thing, right? But like in the 90s, these movies, when they were made, still did kind of rely on the directors

and actors of the 70s who were, who made and started these things. during their heyday, right? Like, the real heyday of a serious adult political thriller. And that generation in the backgris is just, I mean, they've, and direct groups has died, they've retired, they're not really in the game anymore. And there's just not, there just is not the, I mean, I'm not sure there's the interests from the public. There's certainly not the interest from financiers, from Hollywood.

And just sort of in terms of actual people to play, the roles and direct the films. I wonder if there's just like a not enough, not enough people. Well, one that wasn't so bad. Well, they did a TV series, John LaCarray. They've done a few John LaCarray things, like, which we're going to do a John LaCarray movie next. They did Little Drama Girl TV thing wasn't that great.

They did the night manager, which I think was made for TV movie, was okay. Then they did the Tinker Taylor. soldier spy movie which was okay but again it was like a 70s period piece and like it was almost like out of its nostalgia like it's a great it's a great thriller it's a great plot it's a great story but and like I thought they did a pretty like some people are like fans of the original series and the books I kind of hate that movie but I thought they did like a fine job but um like it was very much playing up it's like 70 it was like not exactly the same same level of like once upon a time in Hollywood it's like trying to like play up its period

thing or licorish pizza but it was definitely like trying to be like see what amazing like art direction we have and we've like recreated the the you know this this kind of like cold war milieu and I like that and I can get into it but it wasn't like it was almost not done for its own sake but that was like the only one I could really remember and that was a remake of an adaptation of an old novel so it wasn't like a new script so yeah i mean like it's it's it's quite it's quite a die a dead thing it's kind of too bad i mean like you know the weird thing is i don't know the first mission possible which we're going to get to is like much different from the later ones like i love it it's actiony but it's also like kind of a baroque

plot and espionage stuff going on and like i thought it was a really cool movie and like you know people walked out of that movie because the plot was so intense like i just remember and like kind of like being like whoa what happened there and and the and the later ones just it i mean i i know that it has fans but it just kind of morphed into a total action series and maybe that that's that trajectory kind of is like well you know we need to make blockbusters um there's not enough of an audience for this kind of like simmering these movies that kind of simmer and don't like explode every two three minutes so i don't i think it would be really hard i mean like we're really into this stuff but i'm like this movie's like low key it's got a weird realist style like if you just pop this on

for a lot of people i think they would be like what the fuck is going on this is boring yeah i think that's right but so maybe we're just sickos but like the I think that it would, I mean, this is maybe taking this a step too far, but considering a lot of the things we've seen in the media recently, I think it might actually do the public some good to chew on some movies that were a little bit more sophisticated. Well, I mean, judging from how if you, on the internet say that like a Marvel movie, maybe might not be that good and you'll have people you know uh losing your minds you they want to crucify you yeah you criticize a wes anderson movie recently and people people lost their minds well i oh god i just

was like yeah i mean i they went looting tunes on me and i was just i didn't even hate it i wrote a lukewarm review i said it was like yeah you know like he's kind of doing the same thing i think like his early movies were better and he's kind of gotten carried away people went loonies they attack me they call me an idiot all kinds of things but like yeah i mean he's got like he's he's he's sort of an artur i mean he is definitely an artur who has like a weird style but it's like yeah he's his style has become like stuck and like he's doing like i know what his movies are going to be like and like i mean so so here's kind of kind of to this point there were there is one recent political movie that has gotten a lot of press and it's don't look up it's that

movie about oh fuck that but here's the thing right that it's that movie came out and it was impossible it's impossible to have any kind of nuanced conversations but movie it's not a nuanced movie certainly but even the conversation even the even the discussion of the movie is so bogged down in the kind of you know culture war so annoying fans Random, Stan, all these things that kind of shape cultural discourse in the moment. I think they're just not, they're not, the way cultural discourse is structured, outside of sort of like very niche spaces, it's just difficult to have an intelligent conversation in public about political media. And so if you were to put together a movie like this, if you, if you were to make a, a, uh, here's a movie. that came out recently that I loved, the report about the Senate Torture report, it has

it has Adam Driver doing his best, doing his best Mark Ruffalo, they know. I really like the movie a lot. It was sort of Atlanta, you know, no one watched it, right? Or a Mark Ruffalo movie, Deep Waters, about sort of, you know, chemical companies poisoning West Virginia Waterways. Great film, kind of in this sort of like conspiracy political vein. No one watched it. Right. It's sort of like there's no, the audience for these things has become very, very niche. And so if, you know, I could, I feel like if I put my mind to it, I could like, you know, I could write a movie about some, you know, recent, you know, political,

political event to write a movie about oh I can think of one really good recent one little controversial the ghost writer I never saw that oh you should see it it's a great movie that's a great movie okay that's an exception but he again like

that's a director like you were saying these 70s directors who are dying it's one who hasn't died you know like so that's like he's just like familiar with the genre and can make a great camp. It's a Polansky. Well, yeah,

it's Palantzky movie. We're going to cut this part of the show. We'll keep this in. We'll keep this in. Okay. It's a good movie. I mean, I don't think he's a good guy.

I'm just saying he is a good movie. He's a bad guy, but a very talented director. I watched a, was it, is it, uh, it's a Harrison Ford Polansky.

from the late 80s um oh yeah what are what are the movies in the harrison for it i didn't kill my wife yeah genre yeah i forget to know that one um anyway we're you know we're kind of rambling a little bit so let's let's wrap let's wrap up um listers have they like tangent more tangents but i'm okay i can do tangents i'm sort of anti tangent uh for the most part you want to keep it tight and on topic. Yes. So let's... I can do a tangents all day. Let's, um, let's wrap up.

I feel like we've gotten to our final thoughts. Um, but is there anything, any last thing you want to say about the movie? No, I just, I just really recommend this movie. If you're looking for a, like a really well made thriller about interesting historical topic and, you know, it's not a terribly long movie. and yeah it's really worth of the last few movies that we've watched which have been you know more of historical curiosity let's say than like actual pieces of art this is a this is a worthwhile movie on yeah i strongly agree i really enjoyed this um my wife really enjoyed it for whatever

it's worth and um it is it is it is an hour and 40 minutes it's like in that sweet spot for a week night movie so highly recommend it and you can watch it for free um as well uh okay so i think with that we can call this a show if you are not a subscriber please subscribe uh we're available on itunes spotify stitch radio and google podcast and wherever else podcasts are found if you subscribe please leave a rating and a review last time i checked about 147 of you have done that So thank you very much. It does help people find the show. You can reach out to both of us on Twitter.

I am at Jay Bowie. John, you are. I'm at vinyl trolling. At vinyl underscore trolling. Episodes come out every other Friday. So we will see you in two weeks with the Russia House. Finally. Finally.

The much anticipated, much awaited Russia House, a movie I've never seen. so I'm looking forward to checking it out. For John Gans, I am Jemel Bowie, and this is unclear and present danger. See you next time. Thank you.