PAGE EIGHT (2011)

It’s been a while since a contemporary film had all its leading players smoke.  Lighting up inside & out, and with a leading lady who rolls her own.  And that’s not the only part of this ethically compromised spy drama that harks back to the John Le Carré ‘80s.   This solidly built character piece (better written than directed by playwright David Hare) has a stale, even exhausted feel to it.  Iron-poor geriatric British blood, remnants of a long-gone Empire, where agents go thru the motions till spy master Michael Gambon plants a metaphorical bomb under the government’s feet with evidence of probable complicity covering up a political murder.  (A MidEast peacemaker killed by Israeli forces while under a ‘white flag.’)  Bill Nighy* and Judy Davis are the agents working directly under Gambon given the info needed to work it all out.  But what will they do with it?  Especially tricky for Nighy as he’s just discovered his across-the-hall-neighbor (Rachel Weisz) is sister to the dead man and looking for justice.  A meet-cute or a set-up?  (Either way, a dramatic shortcut definitely beneath whatever Hare thinks he’s trying to do here.*)  Meantime, hovering behind the various moves, countermoves & ill-timed heart attacks, Prime Minister Ralph Fiennes (quite the cast for a BBC tele-pic, no?) pulls strings to bury the revelations of the top-secret report while maintaining good U.S. and Israeli relationships.  Hare holds his cards so close to his Savile Row vest even matters of life-and-death play out in a weightless vacuum of Spy-vs-Spy nomenclature.  Imagine the consequences if these Spies weren’t all playing for the same team!  Still, reasonably involving once Hare gets the pieces in motion.  Enough for a couple of sequels.*

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Any drier and Bill Nighy would be your martini's vermouth of choice.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Clever shit that he is, Hare manages to have it both ways: Meet-Cute and Set-Up. 

DOUBLE-BILL:  *TURK & CAICOS/’14 has Nighy in exile, less at stake & slightly more energy; followed by SALTING THE BATTLEFIELD (not seen here).