Page Eight (2011)

Wonderful Movie

Too much of everything

Absolutely brilliant

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

MI5 discovers a political scandal in Britain. As the boss of MI5 dies (natural causes), everybody involved tries to cover his ass. Furthermore, a girl tries to learn the truth about her brothers killing by Israelis. Bill Nighy is perfect as cool old dog. The kiss was unnecessary and implausible.

Bill Nighy as a spy, David Hare writing and directing, how could Page Eight fail.The answer is of course it did not fail, it produced two sequels to create an odd 'Worricker trilogy' that nobody other than BBC bigwigs wanted. But is Page Eight any good? No.It's slow, it's talky, with lots of self indulgent dialogue that goes nowhere. It's Aaron Sorkin's West Wing in the UK but without the charm that goes with it.I can't fault Nighy's performance, as ever he's fab, but dear me this drags.The sequel 'Turks and Cacaos' actually ditches some of the talking about nothing and attempts to tell a decent story, so I'd watch that instead if I were you.

The MI5 analyst Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) receives from his boss and his friend since they studied at Cambridge, the Director General of MI5 Benedict Baron (Michael Gambon), a top secret report also distributed to Jill Tankard (Judy Davis) and to the Home Secretary Anthea Catcheside (Saskia Reeves). They have an internal meeting and Johnny highlights that on page eight, it is informed that the Prime Minister Alec Beasley (Ralph Fiennes) knows that the US Government is torturing prisoners in prisons around the world. Baron cannot disclose his source, but if the information is correct, the Prime Minister has not informed the MI5. Meanwhile Johnny befriends his next door neighbor, the political activist Nancy Pierpan (Rachel Weisz), whose brother was murdered by the Israeli army with a white flag. When Baron dies of heart attack at home with his wife, Johnny suspects that the death of his friend may not have been an accident. He also finds the file on Nancy's brother. Now Johnny has to decide his next move."Page Eight" is a boring and stylish British political thriller with a bad screenplay and good cast. The ambiguous relationship of Johnny and Nancy sounds weird since the inexpressive Bill Nighy is too old to be a wolf and shows no chemistry with Rachel Weisz. The slow pace and unnecessary subplots make painful to watch this movie in many moments. The conclusion is incredibly dull and senseless, with Johnny leaving his apartment behind with his art collection and traveling from London maybe to South America (the favorite destination of Londoners on the run) apparently broken after leaking the secret information to the BBC. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): Not Available

Although many contemporary British films are full of chases-explosions-shootings, then, from time to time, spy films with slower pace find their decent place in the British filmography. Page Eight is a nice example of the latter, with the fine protagonist Johnny Worricker, MI5 analyst, stylishly performed by Bill Nighy, accompanied by several other British actors such as Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz and Michael Gambon. The script, however, is uneven at times, with decrease in thrill, over-sophistication and unreasoned scenes, but calm atmosphere, witty lines and inclusion of art help to level them, nothing becomes annoying or ridiculous. The ending is expected, but pleasantly elaborate, and when the credits appear, one can ponder on and over human values and drawbacks related to the life dedicated on intelligence and politics.