Taking Liberties (2007) User Reviews

Ask not what you can do for your country...

[jonathan-nuttall · 9/10 · 13 June 2007]

...ask what your country can do to you.

The central thesis of this film aligns itself nicely with the Mark Thomas (who appears in the film) comment that "If You're not p*****d off, you've not been paying attention". It shows by example the story of the gradual erosion of our civil liberties that has been occurring in the recent years, concentrating particularly on the last decade. This is a subject which should have us all handing over our hard earned to be educated and entertained by.

The artful thing about this film is the fact that it cleverly manages to take a fairly dry subjects of civil liberties and human rights, "Not normally box office dynamite" to quote Chris Atkins, and present it in an entertaining and even amusing way. Very much in the tradition of The Road to Guantanamo this film is as shocking but with a greater capacity to entertainment, which will hopefully mean that it will appeal to a wider audience.

Whether you believe that it is the press to blame for forcing gullible media hungry politicians into rushing through knee jerk, badly drafted laws or that there are more sinister forces at work or especially if you are blissfully unaware of what your government has been doing in your name this film holds something for you. See it and tell your friends!

Interesting account of the loss of civil liberty's under the Blair leadership.

[schism101 · 7/10 · 29 July 2007]

Chris Atkins Documentary carrys some interesting accounts of the erosion of civil liberty's in great Britain, some of it I've seen before, such as the use of control orders on entirely innocent people and also the banning of protests outside the house of commons, though there is certainly a lot to focus on and even get you angry in certain parts. Taking a Michael Moore esquire approach with the use of archive footage, from silent films and also a cynical yet witty narration (provided by actors David Morrisey and Ashley Jensen), some have described the film as our version of Fahrenheit 9/11, which it is'nt as that film set out to show the incompetence of George W Bush, TAKING LIBERTIES exposes the fundamentally flawed and fear mongering policy of the British government led under Blair, to slowly erode civil liberty's and bring in new laws and change existing laws, that eventually let pensioners on peaceful protests become arrested under the terrorism act, putting them in the same league as Taliban extremists, destroying the right to protest outside of military basis', weapons factory's and the house of commons itself, and causing the police to swoop in vast numbers on anyone even thinking of waving a placard and most disturbingly of all putting control orders on Muslims who have been convicted in a court of law, as innocent and forcing them to remain in a designated area and effectively making them prisoners in there own home. The film approaches this in light hearted at times yet essentially serious manner, and my only criticism of it is that I would have liked to have more views on the other side of the coin, from the politicians who implement these laws, to at least argue there point, though in retrospect, probably no politician would want to appear in front of the camera for this film for fear of embarrassing themselves. Will civil liberty's change under Gordon Brown now that Blair has left, it's hard to tell and if your like me, i'm cynical and think, no, nothing will probably change, if you have a threat of terror, the best way to assure the public is to keep this threat up and then the public will be behind any change in law as long as it stops the extremists from blowing us up (see Adam Curtis' documentary series THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES to get a full picture on the use of terror and fear). Though one thing we can do, and in many respects the one prevailing factor in LIBERTIES is to keep a chin up and laugh at the absurdity of it all.

If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear...

[g-wensley · 9/10 · 8 February 2009]

Well this is not about hiding, but about becoming cognescent of the draconian creep taking away personal privacy, and public freedoms and liberties. It is not about terrorism, but about the misuse of the terrorism act to surveille the population. It is about agenda, opaque to public perception and concern.

Non-professor Stahlman would have you believe it is all bunkum, even though it is unfolding right before his and your eyes. He would seek to curtail your curiosity in seeing this movie, with petty innuendo and obsfucation. You have your mind to decide what you see and don't see. It is for you to decide the importance of the film...whether the film is crap or not, it carries a very important message, and it is one you should at least be aware of.

Some reviewers have called the film entertaining and humorous, it is neither, Its subject matter is neither entertaining or humorous, it is serious and downright scary. Sometime in the future you will face the very thing this film discusses. No matter how hard you try to keep yourself and your family out of it (as if it is someone else's problem, someone else's fear), it will come calling. The question you need to ask is...What will you do when it does? How will you be able to deal with it, and what resources will there be at hand to help you? Well, if you do not prime yourself before hand, you will perceive there to be none.

I found myself getting extremely angry whilst watching the film, because it reminded me all too starkly that what was defeated with Hitler, is now winning with Blair and the current imbecilic incumbent of No 10. It is winning through a series of gradual unfoldments, incremental tightenings of the noose around each of our necks. You already feel it in your personal economy, the means by which you are enchained to repeatable patterns of behaviour, day in and day out.

Generally the media will not report it. When they do, they will sing the constriction of your liberty as beneficial to you. They will make it sound like a good idea; but like all good ideas, they are open to abuse sometime in the future. Freedom and liberty has to be constantly guarded and fought for. You cannot expect government to be benign, and for your good to safeguard your liberty. It will not do that, it will safeguard its own, and you being freedom and liberty-loving, are a threat to that.

If you've nothing to hide, and have nothing to fear, why then the systematic reduction in your freedom, liberty and personal privacy? Simply because, your government considers you to be a potential terrorist, and will misuse the terrorist act to defend, not you, but itself. Individually, you are expendable, collectively, you are a mob. See Naomi Wolf - From Freedom to Fascism ( A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot). This is not just happening in Britain, but around the world. See the movie and discern for yourself, it just might open your eyes.

Definitely the film of 2007

[goldengirl129 · 10/10 · 26 May 2007]

i have just been to the premiere of 'Taking Liberties' and was both astounded and thoroughly entertained. this film is a documentary about the prolific nature of the statutes that Blair (AKA Bliar)'s government have introduced over the past decade, that not only contradict what Blair promised the British People in his campaign for the Premiership at the 1997 election, but more worryingly, contravene our human rights and our civil liberties. this film is both hilarious and terrifying - the scariest part is that it is all true! the only disappointing thing about this film is that when it is released on June 8th it will only be shown in about 15 cinemas. i know that a lot of cinema goers (me included) will be anxious to see the summer blockbusters that will be released around the same time, but believe me it will be well worth waiting a week, so as to see 'Taking Liberties' instead, not only for your own entertainment and enjoyment but also for the benefit of the rest of the country as the distributors have promised to release this film nationwide if enough people go to see it on the opening weekend.

you WILL enjoy this film so please go and see it!

You have to laugh...

[cliffhanley_ · 12 June 2007]

This is a collection of true stories, all products of the UK's New Labour government and the so-called War on Terror. It opens with the bus-full of peaceful demonstrators (friends of mine) on their way to Fairford to complain about it's being used for bombing expeditions to Iraq, stopped, brutally forced to remain on the (no-toilet) bus and escorted back to London by a horde of police vans and bikes.

The patch-work continues with Walter Wolfgang, the elderly and eminently respectable party member roughed up by ape-men for shouting 'Rubbish' at Jack Straw, Pinochetist Home Secretary. Rose and Ellen, two young sisters arrested on a peaceful demo at an airport, held in solitary for 36 hours, thrown out in the night, their money and mobiles stolen by the police, and warned that speaking to each other would violate their terms of bail. Mouloud Sihali, found innocent in court, but then imprisoned in his own home for two years. Omar Deghayes, a British resident who has been held in Guantanamo for five years and is being left at the mercy of the government that murdered his father.

Also the RAF war veteran arrested for wearing an anti-Bush and Blair T-shirt; an innocent man shot in a police raid based on a faked-up claim about a Ricin poison factory, and a major new change in the law to allow the government to stop one man from keeping his lonely anti-war vigil outside the Houses of Parliament.

Britain has a history of control freakery: in Malaysia after 1945 we separated off the ethnic Chinese population, putting them in reservations where they could be controlled while we maintained war with the Chinese insurgents outside. The UK today is looking ever more like a large reservation, with the sea for a wall. The government contends that we are threatened from outside, and just like anyone with a paranoia problem, makes that threat a reality by its pre-emptive wars. This allows it to behave as the 1939 government did, removing all our rights for our own good.

Right to Protest, Right to Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Right not to be detained without charge, Innocent Until Proved Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. All listed on the screen, and one-by-one, ripped off. Taking Liberties portrays these real stories of liberty loss using up-dated interviews, citizen/journalist footage, newsreel, stunts, and comment from comedian Mark Thomas, Observer writer Henry Porter, Tony Benn, Amnesty, academics and lawyers. Narration from Ashley Jensen (Extras, Ugly Betty); a powerful soundtrack with tracks by, among others, Oasis, Radiohead, The Stranglers and Franz Ferdinand. It almost loses pace 80 minutes in, but the content carries it. By turns horrifying and good-humoured, it's being touted as the UK's equivalent of Fahrenheit 9/11, but it is without the former's flaws, and it's of much more immediate importance. A pity that the distribution deal limited it to out-of-town multiplexes in the UK, so much of its target audience were unaware of its very existence. CLIFF HANLEY

In-depth and humorous

[schemedemon · 10/10 · 5 June 2007]

Many films need to be made to inform a wider audience of a crucial issue that is being largely ignored. In the UK, one issue being deftly swept under the carpet by the authorities is that of identity registration and our rapidly eroding civil liberties.

If I was to deduct points from Chris Atkins for any aspect of this film, it would be one of timing. Where was this film when these draconian reductions in our powers to decide for ourselves were passed into law? The fact is, Atkins has used every last minute of news up until the film's release as source material. This issue is ongoing; it must have been difficult to know when to stop reporting and when to finish editing, so it is no wonder that this film took so long to arrive.

Politics, and in particular liberal politics, is never very easy to force down the throats of a nationwide audience. In a fairly successful move to sex up and illustrate certain points, the film gives way to more of Simon Robson's (of Knife Party fame) beautiful polemic motion graphics. These (although sometimes hard to read) add to the sense of revolution, that dissent and caring about politics could one day be considered 'cool'.

The serious journalism comes into play in several case studies involving several cases where anti-terrorism laws have been abused by police forces to indiscriminately break up peaceful protests. One shocking section reveals how a weapons guidance manufacturer on the South coast effectively 'hired' the local police force to arrest people attending the weekly protest outside the EDO factory.

The examples of police brutality, recording of the public, and general ignorance are not simply garnering antipathy for police officers. The film's makers clearly understand the need to blame not the police but those that equip them with unmitigated authority.

This film manages to weave between pretty much all of the concerns surrounding UK liberty, legal issues, our rights (as guaranteed by Churchill, apparently) without getting too heavy or legalese, or mentioning Orwell a million times like other idiot journalists who write about civil liberties.

It seems longer than it really is, because it, like many of its long-form docufeature bedfellows, it manages to cram in a lot of relevant and scary imagery and info without always resorting to the dreary voice-over-and-stock-footage formula that is tempting when writing a documentary.

Obviously Chami Chakrabarti was in the film - as director of Liberty, the charity trying to save us from pseudofascists, she acted, as always, as the voice of cool, calm reason.

The one line I was waiting to hear was a rebuttal to: "If I've done nothing wrong, I've got nothing to hide". Maybe I'll put that one in my film:

POLICE STORMTROOPER: Everyone get down on the floor! We can see you all and we have guns pointed at you!

TERRIFIED CIVILIANS: Leave us alone! Get out of my house!

POLICE STORMTROOPER: If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide from us, no?

Edmund Brown

Postscript: Brian Haw, the only man in Britain allowed to legally protest outside Parliament, went to my screening tonight at the Ritzy Brixton and was sat in front of me. He got an ovation after the screening. What a guy. At several points, I guffawed out loud, right into Brian's left ear. Everyone else in the screening was being polite and quiet and reserved, and there, to the chagrin of the whole audience, I found myself unable to keep from laughing at little quips about our right-wing government.

Sharp, cutting documentary about the damage to UK civil liberties under Tony Blair

[runamokprods · 8/10 · 23 June 2011]

A sort of 'Michael Moore goes to England' documentary about the gradual leaching away of civil rights under Tony Blair.

Always interesting and entertaining, and occasionally deeply disturbing.

Yet for me it just misses greatness through it's one-sided arguments that sometimes feel a bit forced, without the human voice that Moore puts on his films.

The difference between someone blatantly, admitting 'this is my perspective', as a film- maker like Moore does, and this film's pretense at 'objectivity' makes it a bit harder to take, and somehow less affecting than films that are more honest that they are stating (in this case quite effectively) a specific point-of-view.

None-the-less, I'd re-watch this, and I'm sure enjoy it again. But here in the States, the 'Daily Show' does it better, and a lot more succinctly.

Has Chris Taken Liberties With The Truth?

[ShadeGrenade · 1/10 · 9 June 2007]

It had to happen. Noting the success of the Michael Moore anti-Bush polemic 'Fahrenheit 9/11', someone in the U.K. has tried to fashion a similar movie attacking Tony Blair's Labour Government. The trouble is there's not enough evidence to support the extraordinary claims it makes. Yes, the arrest of Maya Evans and Milan Rai for reading out the names of Iraq war victims opposite the Cenotaph in Whitehall was regrettable, as was the detaining of Walter Wolfgang under the terrorism laws for heckling Jack Straw's speech at a Labour conference ( you must remember that the security men were keen to avoid a repeat of the previous year's conference when Blair was heckled by Tory infiltrators ), and Gloucestershire police preventing a bus load of anti-war demonstrators from protesting outside RAF Fairford, but do these and other incidents combined paint a picture of a totalitarian government hellbent on destroying cherished freedoms? No!

It is easy to make a film of this kind. You scour the news archive, cherry pick the bits that best serve your agenda, interview malcontents, string them together, overlay ominous sounding narration and music, and hey presto - you've got yourself a conspiracy movie. The only M.P.'s to appear are Boris Johnson, Ken Clarke and Clare Short. Is Chris having a laugh or what?

Ask yourself this - if ( as Chris claims ) we really do live in a police state, why hasn't the Government suppressed this film and thrown its creator in jail?

No mention of Britain under Thatcher, of course, when trade unions were banned from G.C.H.Q., when police stopped and searched cars during the 1984 Miners' Strike to block pickets from travelling around the country, when the G.L.C. was abolished simply because the P.M. did not like it, when Clive Ponting nearly went to jail for speaking the truth about the sinking of the Belgrano, when Trident protesters at Greenham Common were smeared as Communist sympathisers, when miners were beaten senseless for trying to protect their jobs, when London saw the worst riots in its history thanks to the hated poll tax and when Thames Television lost its franchise because it made a programme - 'Death On The Rock' - the Tory Government did not like. More recently, we have had Section 28. That, Mr.Atkins, was a true police state.

When the evidence is not deemed strong enough to support his argument, he brazenly distorts the truth. For instance, he claims Blair has taken away an ancient right to protest near Parliament. That right never existed.

Its true that, in the wake of the London bombings, security has had to be tightened up and one expects that. Which is the greater evil - having one's right to demonstrate curtailed or being murdered by fanatics? In all the palaver over identity cards, it seems to have been forgotten that the Tories were once keen on the idea. So come off your hobbyhorse, Chris.

There's an interesting documentary to be made about civil liberties, but this is not it. I note that ads have been appearing on pro-fox hunting websites. When it comes out on D.V.D. it should be double billed with Channel 4's 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', another steaming turd-pile of lies and half-truths. If you're thinking of seeing this, don't bother.

CODA: Its November 2013, and the Tory-led coalition government has ruled out a full enquiry to the Ed Snowden claims that the N.S.A. have been monitoring U.K. emails and phone calls. "The innocent have nothing to fear!", says foreign secretary William Hague. If Tony Blair had said that when he was P.M., the Murdoch press would have had a field day. Any plans to make 'Taking Liberties 2', Chris?

Great for the choir but not good enough to convince the unsure – which is what I would have liked it to do

[bob the moo · 15 June 2008]

It is probably best that I hold my hands up from the start and say that, in regards this film I am a member of choir. I am pretty liberal but on the subject of terrorism legislation I do think I have a right to an opinion because of my experiences as a Northern Irish man in England. I note that some critics of this film have criticised it for the way that it does paint things in a very bad light and, while I agree to a point, I do also think that there is a certain amount of "it'll never happen to me" thinking, similar to the "if you have nothing to hide what is the problem" school of thought. However having been arrested and held for being on the same street as Prince Charles would later visit that same day (after several court appearances, the charges were thrown out). So I do have a certain amount of sympathy with those that fear being wrongly targeted by those given the powers to do so if they wish.

However I must be careful not to let me agreeing with the politics of the film totally cloud my view on it because, as much as I agree with it, it is not that great a documentary. It is too simplistic in some regards and it just seems to throw examples at the screen in the aim of hitting the audience with so much stuff it has no time to digest, consider or reflect. The strongest documentaries build their case and let you come along with them to the point where you find it hard to disagree; those films that simply dollop it out are doing the audience a disservice and tend to be those that fail to win over anyone other than those who already agree with the message. So it is here and it is a real shame because moment by moment it is compelling stuff. While nowhere near the degree where we cower in our homes after curfew, liberties are being squeezed and the many examples make it hard to ignore as an issue. However it doesn't pull it together in a focused fashion and ultimately seems to think the point will just make itself. The rather rebellious tone suits some of the material but at times goes too far and again makes this a film "for the audience" – the closing song is the most extreme example of this and quite unnecessary.

It is a shame it is not better because it is an important topic but, while it is compelling stuff, the failure to really deliver a killer argument or a strong structure is its undoing in regards winning the hearts of the undecided viewer. Goes without saying that, for the choir, it is great stuff, but I wanted it to do more than just tick the target audience box.

You have been scammed.

[mynameischicken · 1/10 · 11 July 2021]

Let's start this with the facts of the matter. This director purports to make this film in the interests of the public, and yet I wonder if he's currently working on a similar film about removal of liberties under the Johnson government? No? Well, well, well. People's right to protest is now but removed.

And vital to this film is the fact that the director later was sentenced to five years in prison after facilitating a tax scam for wealthy people to make a £40,000 tax claim by only spending £20,000. One can only speculate which political party the wealthy tax cheats are affiliated to, but sadly it's likely true, and it goes to show how this director is actually a political shill. Dark money right-wing docs, there's tons of them out there, just another assault on your freedoms to find tour own facts and make your own mind up. Don't fall for this con.