Modern Monsters A BBC2 movie with a dream casting, Page Eight is a quiet spy drama in the John Le Carré's vein, extremely well written, elegantly directed and, not surprisingly, supremely well acted. It is best enjoyed for its deadpan dialogues, wryly delivered by some of the best British thespians around. A small gem with not an ounce of violence but filled with menace and danger.Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy, who can load a seemingly innocuous line like "I've got a question" with chilling tension), is an old school MI5 analyst reporting to his Cambridge friend Benedict Baron (Michael Gambon, great in an old chap role he could play in his sleep) with whom he "shares a wife", Emma (Alice Krige, always gloriously venomous). She was pregnant with their daughter Julianne (Felicity Jones) when he left her for another woman and she married Baron. Julianne resents her father to have let her and her mother down and expresses her anger and resentment through troubled paintings, which Johnny, a fond art collector, does not appreciate. He lives a quiet, discreet life in an apartment which walls are covered with art, and listens to jazz. He doesn't believe in the Special Relationship with USA.Two events disrupt this routine in rapid fire. He meets his neighbour, Nancy (Rachael Weisz, a guarantee of quality in herself), daughter of a Syrian activist and whose brother has been killed by the Israeli while waving a white flag, and a possible set up. His boss dies after presenting out of the blue a report to the Home Secretary (Saskia Reeves, whose great first line is "Let's start the bloody meeting!"). The report, from a secret American source, proves that USA have secret prison facilities abroad and its page eight establishes that the British Prime Minister (Ralph Fiennes, reptilian as ever) has knowledge of it.The conundrum is the following: is the report wrong, in which case USA has left Great Britain in the dark, or is it true, in which case the PM has left his Home Secretary in the dark? Head of MI5 Jill Tankard (Judy Davies, not seen often enough) does not appreciate to be caught unbalanced and threatened Johnny to fire him if he does not return the top secret report he has in his possession. Will Johnny take a stance or yield to pressure? One won't tell, but the way he navigates this tricky waters makes for some very good, if subdued, espionage.The job of an analyst is to know who to trust. The legacy of Johnny's friend and boss is "a matter of honour". Faced with spin doctors and treacherous politicians, he remains "an all-round decent person", the trait we love in British people even though it largely remains a mystery, like most of Angliana. Asked why he changed his mind at some point, he eludes "Oh you know, wind, caprice…" A feast of understatement, Page Eight is an all-round decent movie, well, more than decent, actually. No question.

bjarias Take two twelve bottle cases of wine and stack one on top of the other.. then try carrying them both in one arm, while you're carrying something else in the other.. oh yea, and make it look totally easy, like there was nothing inside the two boxes.. (cause obviously there wasn't)!! And that's only one example of just how absurd parts two and three of this trilogy eventually become. Page Eight was really good enough (gorgeous RW), and I was so looking forward to the other two segments. But it was like night and day.. as if part one was made in Britain, and two and three in the US. The 7 rating is for part one.. two and three deserve no more than a 5.. and that's being overly generous.

rebaaron-1 This is an ultra-Leftist film. The dictatorial Prime Minister of Great Britain and the evil Americans are in cahoots hiding the secret that the Americans are running torture chambers all over the world. The good director of MI-5 (who dies halfway through) and his golden-haired protégé work to expose the Prime Minister's deceit to the nation. An added subplot, mixed with a romantic element for the fair-haired boy, is that the Israelis are shooting people waving white flags and covering up these cold-blooded murders at the highest levels of the Israeli intelligence services. The British Secret service knows about this as well, but isn't telling anyone. I guess they are not all as good as our hero. In the finale the Israelis are outed on national television and a good time is had by all. Good actors, decent dialogue, but ultimately unwatchable because of the sickening premises, which require the inversion of good and evil, with the help of a lot of lies.

Ben Larson When I see Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, and Ralph Fiennes in a cast, I know I have to check it out. I was not sorry I did. The three were together in at least one other great film - The Constant Gardener. Individually, there is seldom a really good film that doesn't have one of the three.Of course the Golden Globes and BAFTA agree with me as they both gave the film a nomination.The Prime Minster (Fiennes) seems to be up to his neck in deception. The meeting between Nighy and he was fascinating. Page Eight was a positive surprise with good dialogue and an engaging story.