Government accountability, front and center, in Gavin Hood's exemplary OFFICIAL SECRETS

Anyone interested in recent history -- including how and why certain western powers got into an unjust, stupid and worthless (except to those corporate and individual folk who continue to profit from it) war that is still going on -- will not want to miss OFFICIAL SECRETS, the film co-written and directed by Gavin Hood that tells the based-on-life story of British intelligence agency whistleblower, Katharine Gun, who leaked information about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the film, we see our own President George W. Bush and Colin Powell, as well as Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, blatantly lying on to the television cameras (Powell has since apologized for this; so far as I know, Bush and Blair never have) in the run-up to the vile Iraq War. What filmmaker Hood (pictured at right), his co-writers and his very starry British cast have done remarkably well, is to bring to immediate and visceral life how word of these sleazy goings-on, which resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, managed to leak out to the world -- despite the leak's doing, finally, not one lick of good in halting the war.

Still, as the Brit journalist (played so well by Matt Smith, above and below) points out late in the proceedings, the British government that did this, and the British press that mostly managed to cover it up, rather than actually cover it, must answer for their behavior. As should the American press, along with the corrupt and criminal past administration most responsible for the atrocity.

Yet no one has ever taken responsibility for any of this. The cowardly Obama administration did nothing to bring the criminals to any kind of remote justice (or even admission of responsibility), and then allowed Wall Street and the Banks to profit from their misdeeds involving mortgages, bubbles and world-wide meltdowns. Anyone naive enough to wonder how Donald Trump arrived at his present position need only consider this: When government responsibility is shirked over and over again, a nation ends up with someone in charge who actually revels in irresponsbility. (Italy and Berlusconi provide an even earlier example.)

The movie's greatest strength lies in its wonderful detailing of everything we see and hear -- from how the leaked information slowly makes its way public, to how the press works (or sometimes doesn't) to Mrs. Gun (achingly, vitally portrayed by Keira Knightley, above) and her life at work and at home with her immigrant Muslim husband (Adam Bakri, below), who is used by her government in a particularly nasty manner.

In these wonderfully real and specific details -- as well as in dialog that, while always believable, does a bang-up job of bringing the details and plot strands together -- Mr. Hood and his crew find the way to offer up a hugely important slice of recent history. If you don't follow British history as closely as you do American (if anyone still does much of either), Gun's story will not be so familiar, and its outcome (particularly the "why" of that outcome) will surprise you.

Along the way, you'll be treated to some of the UK's finest performers, from Ralph Fiennes (above, bewigged, front and center), Jeremy Northam (as Fiennes' friend/foe), Matthew Goode (below) and Rhys Ifans, among a bunch of others. All do a first-rate job. TrustMovies suspects many of these fine actors came aboard this project for reasons as much to do with its importance as with their own egos and/or paychecks.

As good as is the supporting cast, it's Ms Knightley who gives the film its heart, mind and strength. Her performance is so impressive that, however you may feel about this ongoing war and the venal politicians who enabled it, it will be difficult not to understand why this woman acted as she did.

From IFC Films and running a just-about-perfect 111 minutes, Official Secrets, named for the (in)famous "Official Secrets Act" -- used by the British government (as so many countries use similar "laws") to silence its citizens in the name of national security -- after opening on the coasts, hits South Florida this Friday, September 13. Look for it at the AMC Aventura 24 and Sunset Place 24 and the CMX Brickell City Center, and Cobb's Downtown at the Gardens 16. 

DVDebut for Antonino D'Ambrosio's hero cop documentary, FRANK SERPICO

The idea that anyone -- back in 1973 when the film Serpico first appeared, or now, some 45 years later, with the DVD release of the new documentary, FRANK SERPICO, about that New York City cop-turned-whistleblower --- could question whether Frank Serpico was a hero or a "rat" (as so many of his fellow cops, a lot of whom were corrupt, on-the-take sleaze-bags, would call him then and still do today), offers a clear perspective as to why the United States of America continues to struggle so mightily for anything approaching justice and parity for its citizens.

While the earlier film, directed with his usual grit and realism by the late Sidney Lumet, was terrifically entertaining and timely (and remains so today), the new documentary written, produced and directed by Antonino D'Ambrosio (shown at left), proves a surprising and often fascinating addition to the Serpico story.

Mr. D'Ambosio's name seemed somewhat familiar to TrustMovies, so I checked my past posts to find I'd reviewed an earlier film of his, another documentary concerned with American justice entitled Let Fury Have the Hour (click the link for the review).

I'm happy to report that the filmmaker's new documentary is a considerably more cogent and focused piece of work.

Beginning with a scene in which Mr. Serpico (shown above, back in the 70s, and below more currently) explains how, as a police officer, he had to arrest prostitutes and how much he detested that kind of work, the documentary then moves to American history and our country's anti-Italian prejudice, Serpico's own family history, including his grandfather and father, from both of whom he seems to have inherited much of his moral compass.

This fellow proves quite a low-key but very compelling host and raconteur, and D'Ambrosio's filmic style, perhaps deliberately in keeping with that of his subject, is measured and quiet, never glossy nor hyped. Together, filmmaker and subject make for an excellent combination that never needs to plead for our trust but instead gets it quite naturally.

We hear from a number of Serpico's partners and friends (one of these is shown above) from the old days, including the partner he had on the day he was shot in the head -- an event that remains as suspicious now as it seemed at the time, since this man had made it his mission to try to bring to light, top to bottom, the corruption that was endemic throughout the New York City Police Department.

This shooting takes place midway through the film and its aftermath, which is, in a sense, still going on, takes up the remainder of the movie. We learn how Serpico, once he got out of the hospital, managed to get the police report regarding his shooting, which showed that, instead of the police themselves reporting one of their own being felled, the call to the police actually came from a civilian. That's how much the cops cared about saving the life of this man.

Then we see a little of the famous Knapp Commission, in which NYC police corruption was investigated, and to which Serpico provided much of the background and evidence. We hear (and see now) from his then-lawyer, Ramsey Clark (above, left).

Over a drink, we're privy to a meeting between him and his ex-partner in which that partner accuses Serpico of only going after cops as the bad guys but not their bosses.  "How would you do that?" Frank asks him. "I don't know. I didn't even try," comes the abashed response. We see and hear a lot about the negative response to Serpico's whistleblowing, and how the police want to paint it all as "us against them." But, as Ramsey Clark points out, that is incorrect because in reality, "It's only us." Or it should be. Funny how power and corruption always divide things.

There's some time, too, devoted to afterward, as our cop moves first to a farm in Northern Holland, and then finally to a home in upstate New York. D'Ambrosio ends his documentary with a huge rallying cry for justice and honesty now. The event that closes the film, together with the last line of dialog spoken, makes for a memorable humdinger of a finale.

From Sundance Selects and IFC Films, Frank Serpico hits the street on DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, March 13 -- for purchase and/or rental.

WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: Robert Greenwald's doc hits hard--and hits home

What a shame that our first black (more properly, mixed-race) President would turn out to be a closet fascist, albeit it one who pushes health care (so long as it keeps the insurance companies in clover). But them's the breaks. Is anyone really surprised? Really? In these days when money courts power and the two of them march down the aisle with literally every American elected public official eventually following hard and fast behind?

Among the most disastrous and disappointing aspects of the Obama regime is how thoroughly and disgustingly this man -- who claimed he would provide a transparent government -- and his chief underling, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (below), have gone after -- of all things -- whistleblowers who are trying to call to the attention of the American people (and the rest of the world) wrongs that need to be righted and suppressed information that should see the light of day. And this, on top of nearly zero prosecution of the bankers and Wall Street criminals, whose sleaze has left so much of the U.S.population in dire financial and employment straits, all the while spying illegally on the America public (and anyone else they could manage), pushing us all the closer to the ultimate "Big Brother" state. No, children, I am not referring to that "TV show."

In his newest film dedicated to unveiling the veiled, WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: FREE PRESS AND THE NATIOMNAL; SECURITY STATE, filmmaker Robert Greenwald (shown below) offers for our delectation all this in sharp detail, especially concerning the work of four important whistleblowers: what they did and why they did it, and why their "blowing" is so important to our freedom.

Greenwald also links this war against whistleblowers with other current activity designed to remove more and more of our supposed freedoms. (I say supposed because I am not at all sure they remain with us.) Greenwald has long been a muckraker, with muck imminently worthy of raking. The bigger question is whether the Ameri-can people care to listen and understand, and then to act on what they know. It appears that the answer is no, and so, as usual, we deserve the politicians we elect to serve -- not us, but the powerful and monied who actually funded them.

We hear the stories of the quartet of current men who've blown the whistle in four very different areas (plus an ex-whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg of The Pentagon Papers), and these tales are all shocking, moving and more-than-a-little anger-making. That's Thomas Tamm, above, who outed the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping, and Franz Gayle, below, who first blew the whistle on the U.S. military during the Iraq War for its crappy Humvees that were defenseless against roadside IEDs.

Some stories have relatively happy endings for the problems, but few do for the whistleblower himself (Gayle, who got his security clearance and his job back, is a rare exception). Michael DeKort, below, who blew the whistle on the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater Program, now works nowhere near the capacity or salary he had.

The story of Thomas Drake, below, is perhaps the oddest because, though a whistleblower, he did nothing that was illegal, and yet the government seemed to want to use him as a case study to scare any and all future whistleblowers. And this, from people whose illegal wiretapping and torture still goes on.

The men themselves can only be seen as heroes who cared enough to actually do something. The movie was made too soon to say much about Bradley Manning, and well before Edward Snowden, shown below, made his fateful decision. But you'll better understand at least some of their motivating factors after seeing this fine film.

War on Whistleblowers, via The Disinformation Company and running 67 minutes, after a limited theatrical release earlier this year, makes its DVD debut tomorrow, Tuesday, July 30, and will be available for sale or rental, from your usual sources (though Netflix, I see, does not offer it. Bad!). To watch a trailer for the film, click.