ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Manthast Absolutely amazing

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

nrl-travers 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?

didi-5 With a mouthwatering cast (Gabriel Byrne, Denholm Elliott, Fulton Mackay, David Calder, Ian Bannen, Greta Sacchi, etc.) this film promises a lot and more or less delivers. Set in a newsroom against the backdrop of political scandal and cover-ups, 'Defence of the Realm' keeps you watching and keeps you guessing.It is a shame that the ending is a bit of a let-down, coming far too abruptly and leaving the viewer cheated of a really tight finale. But it is a minor grumble, and although this film is far from a classic there is much to recommend it. And incidentally, good use of music at the moments where a bit of tension is needed.

writers_reign This is very much the Mixture As Before which wheels out the Usual Suspects, Bannen, Elliott, Calder, etc, and lets them meander through ten reels of Is He, Isn't He, Was He, Wasn't He, Will He, Won't he til it figures the punters have had it up to here at which time it throws in an ambiguous ending. It was a good twenty years since the 'Profumo' affair so the Producers were fairly safe in recycling the idea of a Government Minister and a KGB Officer sharing the sexual favours of the same hooker as the tip of an increasingly larger iceberg. Gabriel Byrne is the 'investigative' journo who discovers, surprise, surprise, that there's more to the story than romps in the hay and minor cover-ups and the whole thing is fairly undemanding for Multiplex regulars who can swallow it whole without missing a beat of their popcorn mastication.

tetsab Well put together, and it will not do your paranoia any good at all! (But then, if you're not a bit paranoid, there's something wrong with you!)Perhaps the characters could do with filling out a little, but on the whole, this is a very well-crafted thriller, to which you have to pay attention, as there are no big info-dumps or exposition: you have to work out a lot for yourself.