It’s odd to think of the ’80s as a movie decade in which we can bandy the phrase “They don’t make’em like that any more” about. Hollywood’s blockbuster obsession almost wholly took over, and the roman numeralization of cinema “franchises” became the business model.
It wasn’t just “Rocky” or Indiana Jones or “Jaws” or any Eddie Murphy smash hit that served up sequels.
But there was were defiant voices shouting into the hurricane of mass market commodities that the movies were becoming. Producer David Puttnam was a maverick of the British cinema, an instinctual artist who put his energy into financing and filming “Chariots of Fire,” “The Killing Fields,” “Local Hero,” “Midnight Express” and Ridley Scott’s first film, “The Duelists.”
His movie-making motto was “I’m not afraid to fail, providing I fail honorably.” And he didn’t really fail until he tried to reform Hollywood from within by taking over as head of Sony/Columbia/Tristar in the mid-80s, fired “honorably” but quite quickly (after about a year) for pushing smart cinema like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Little Nikita,” “Hope and Glory” and the Bill Cosby bomb “Leonard Part 6” into production.
One of the last films he got into theaters before taking Columbia’s reins was quintessential Puttnam and something of a deal-maker for the Columbia hire. “Defence of the Realm” was a jewel created on a modest budget. It’s a crisp, smart, sharply-observant and perfectly paranoid thriller about a government scandal that might have been ginned up to cover up a bigger scandal. A reporter who must turn over clues, take ethical shortcuts, follow his insincts and fight lies, pushback, government threats and the unholy truth that big media companies — even then — are owned by rich men with self-serving agendas that trump independent journalism, no matter how important.
It’s a movie that spent its production money on the cast — Gabriel Byrne, Greta Scaachi, Denholm Elliott, Ian Bannen and Bill Paterson for starters. The director came from and would go back to British TV, an unfussy master of unflashy story-telling and making a production’s trains run on time.
The score might be that twinkly synthesized tinnitus that was the soundtrack of ’80s cinema, a hallmark of the era thanks to the Puttnam-produced/Vangelis-scored “Chariots of Fire.” But it’s the understated, limited dialogue of the underexplained story that makes the viewer pay attention and “come to” the movie rather than having it simplistically served up that makes this crackling, cynical tale a classic.
An unfussy, unspectacular car chase open “Defence,” retitled “Defense” for its m. A stakeout follows. But it isn’t cops or government agents who’re watching who goes into a prostitute’s flat. It’s a newspaper photographer, under orders from editors at the Daily Dispatch. A few snaps confirm what they’ve been told to expect. A Member of Parliament (Ian Bannen) named Markham is seeing the same sex worker of an East German/Russian-connected spy.
Rumpled, seasoned and sometimes sauced political reporter Vernon (Elliott) may advise caution and take the job of confronting his old MP friend/source with the accusation. But younger “ink-stained wretch” Nick Mullen (Byrne) is all over it, and his underhanded Fleet Street ethics have him passing himself off as a policeman to get the MP’s wife to get a rise out of her. Which he does.
The “Red Markham” headlines write themselves.
But Vernon hints that there’s something seriously wrong with this story. And when Nick catches a couple of fellows rummaging through Vernon’s newsroom desk after hours and takes Vernon home from the pub to find the man’s flat has been tossed, he develops his own suspicions.
When someone winds up dead, it’s on Nick to work the phones, follow leads and track down the truth, no matter what his editor (Paterson) and rich, connected publisher (Fulton McKay) think.
“Defence of the Realm” plays as a snapshot-in-time period piece today, a film that captured peak Fleet Street newspapering, with profitable enterprises all up and down that London thoroughfare sending reporters hither and yon to scoop their legions of competitors. The Aussie oligarch Murdoch had already bought his way in and ethics were in a downward spiral that the digital era would only amplify.
The typewriter-filled newsroom is quieter than any depicted in American films. But even if they didn’t call their library/archives “the morgue” filled with story clips (“cuttings,” the Brits called them), the photo archives and chemical, analog enlargement process — following another “tipped” scoop — were the same at pretty much any newspaper in what we used to call “the Free World.”
Decisions are made by the mostly elder statesman of the newspaper’s masthead — senior (white, male) editors. But the publisher is destined to intervene, even though they all say they’ll “not interfere” with what’s being reported.
Martin Stellman’s script — loosely inspired by the Profumo affair of the ’60s (filmed as “Scandal” with Joanne Whalley) — is thin on dialogue. So director David Drury (TV’s “Prime Suspect”) has Byrne get across his state of mind and the next clue he might follow with gestures and facial expressions, not words. Byrne has long been one of my favorite actors, and this is one of his greatest and most compact performances.
The accomplished cast of supporting players gets across their roles and function in the story even if we can’t pick up everybody’s name or actual job.
Scaachi plays the accused MP’s secretary, that one source our reporter is destined to plead “I need your help” to. She’s too smart to get involved with him, even if he was to allow the distraction of acting “interested.” There’s an early appearance by Robbie Coltrane as a fellow reporter,
Drury gets great suspense out of simple matters like collecting a hidden stash of incriminating documents before a rickety elevator arrives. And he, Stellman and Byrne keep the tone relentlessly downbeat.
We’re warned, with every turn of events, not to expect a Hollywood ending. Because there isn’t one coming. Because, as ’80s thrillers go, “Defence of the Realm” is as blunt and bleak as anything the more celebrated ’70s cinema produced. In either case, they really “don’t make’em like this any more.”
Rating: PG, smoking
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Greta Scaachi, Denholm Elliott, Ian Bannen, Fulton McKay, Bill Paterson and Robbie Coltrane
Credits: Directed by David Drury, scripted by Martin Stellman. An MGM release streaming on Tubi, Amazon, etc.
Running time: 1:36
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