Just watched the DVD. I wanted to weep. This film is dire. Gabriel Byrne spends a lot of time doing nothing but looking moody (okay if you fancy Gabriel, elseways a total void). The plot twists and turns, with any number of loose ends and dead ends. Dead ends make for dead films. The newspaper office scenes are nothing like any newspaper for which I worked in those days - as a business reporter for The Times, as a freelance for the FT, as a part-timer for the Sunday Express: even the layouts are wrong (too much Citizen Kane, or whatever). The civil servants lack the silky touch that Whitehall assassins frequently master so well. The did they, didn't they ending floats in the water, and then sinks without a farewell bubble. I am not surprised it never seems to have made it onto the big screen. Or was it previewed in Bury St. Edmunds?
Review of Defense of the Realm
