Defence of the Realm (1985)

Director:

David Drury

Writer:

Martin Stellman (writer)

Release Date:

21 November 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller

Tagline:

Just how far will a government go to hide the truth?

Plot:

After a newspaper reporter helps expose a Member of Parliament as a possible spy, he finds that there's much more to the story than that.

Plot Keywords:

Political | Cover Up | Journalism | Newspaper | Air Base

Awards:

Won BAFTA Film Award. Another 6 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Gabriel Byrne	...	Nicholas 'Nick' Mullen
Greta Scacchi	...	Nina Beckman
Denholm Elliott	...	Vernon Bayliss
Ian Bannen	...	Dennis Markham
Fulton Mackay	...	Victor Kingsbrook
Bill Paterson	...	Jack Macleod
David Calder	...	Harry Champion
Frederick Treves	...	Arnold Reece
Robbie Coltrane	...	Leo McAskey
Annabel Leventon	...	Trudy Markham
Graham Fletcher-Cook	...	Micky Parker
Steven Woodcock	...	Steven Dyce
Alexei Jawdokimov	...	Dietrich Kleist
Danny Webb	...	Danny Royce (as Daniel Webb)
Prentis Hancock	...	Frank Longman

Also Known As:

Defense of the Realm (USA)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:PG | Singapore:PG | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Argentina:13 | Iceland:L | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Lee International Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK

Company:

Enigma Film

Trivia:

The name of the airbase is never mentioned. However at one ponint Nick views a press clipping that states the (presumed) hit-and-run driving incident occurred in the village of Brandon. That's in Suffolk, adjacent to the US airbase at RAF Lakenheath. (However, the building Nick is seen parked outside when he asks, and is denied, permission to visit the base commander, is not at Lakenheath, it looks more like RAF Uxbridge which would have been easier to get permission to film at, and is also very close to the Shepperton studio where the film was made.)

Quotes:

[Byrne pours his coffee into a potted plant]
Jack Macleod: Aw, Christ, what did that geranium ever do to you?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Howling III (1987)

They're out to get you...

This taut, underrated little thriller might be called a British version of "The Parallax View". Ian Bannen plays a Profumo-like MP targeted by the security services because he knows too much. His career is ruined by muck-raking reporter Gabriel Byrne but the latter's determination to get to the bottom of the story, and his guilt at the death of a colleague (the superb Denholm Elliott), lead him down unexpected political byways...

"Defence of the Realm" can boast excellent location work and a convincing recreation of the vanished world of the "old" hard-drinking Fleet Street. The tone becomes darker and more claustrophobic as the film goes on and the apolitical Byrne enters a paranoid world of car headlights in the rearview mirror, bugged telephones and rifled apartments. The film taps into many of the issues that concerned the British Left in the mid-eighties (secrecy, American missiles on UK soil, the unaccountability of the security services, newspaper obsession with sexual gossip to the exclusion of harder material) and builds to a clever, if shocking, double-twist climax. Well worth locating and viewing.