Official Secrets

Name: Official Secrets
Genre: Biography, Drama, Thriller, Romance, War
Released: August 30, 2019
Duration: 112 min
Rating: 63
Cast: Conleth Hill, Hanako Footman, Hattie Morahan, Indira Varma, Jack Farthing

2019

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 51 Ratings

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7.3

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7.3	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 51 Ratings

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Official Secrets (US Trailer 1)

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Movie Details & Credits

IFC Films | Release Date: August 30, 2019 | R

Starring: Conleth Hill, Hanako Footman, Hattie Morahan, Indira Varma, Jack Farthing, Jeremy Northam, Katherine Kelly, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Cranham, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Monica Dolan, MyAnna Buring, Ralph Fiennes, Rhys Ifans, Shaun Dooley, Tamsin Greig

Summary: She risked everything to stop an unjust war. Her government called her a traitor. Based on world-shaking true events, Official Secrets tells the gripping story of Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), a British intelligence specialist whose job involves routine handling of classified information. One day in 2003, in the lead up to the Iraq War,She risked everything to stop an unjust war. Her government called her a traitor. Based on world-shaking true events, Official Secrets tells the gripping story of Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), a British intelligence specialist whose job involves routine handling of classified information. One day in 2003, in the lead up to the Iraq War, Gun receives a memo from the NSA with a shocking directive: the United States is enlisting Britain’s help in collecting compromising information on United Nations Security Council members in order to blackmail them into voting in favor of an invasion of Iraq. Unable to stand by and watch the world be rushed into an illegal war, Gun makes the gut-wrenching decision to defy her government and leak the memo to the press. So begins an explosive chain of events that will ignite an international firestorm, expose a vast political conspiracy, and put Gun and her family directly in harm’s way. [IFC Films]… Expand

Director: Gavin Hood

Genre(s): Biography, Drama, Thriller, Romance, War

Rating: R

Runtime: 112 min

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Critic Reviews

Oliver Jones

Aug 29, 2019

The story Hood’s film tells is a vital one to revisit, not just because the deceptions it illuminates inform so much of the political and international morass affecting our daily lives, but also shows the power of a single act of moral courage, and it does so while being blisteringly entertaining cinema. Read full review

Tim Grierson

Feb 1, 2019

Director Gavin Hood gives the proceedings a rousing electricity, and he’s aided by a cast which leans into the story’s urgency and continued relevance. Read full review

Ann Hornaday

Sep 4, 2019

Although Knightley’s Gun often seems to be a passive figure, buffeted by the machinations of those around her, the film’s honesty about the enormous personal costs of whistleblowing is a welcome relief from more romanticized heroics. Read full review

Chuck Bowen

Aug 19, 2019

Gavin Hood wrings suspense out of the parsing of the nuances of evidence and the tapping of mysterious contacts. Read full review

Richard Roeper

Sep 12, 2019

While Gun’s story is certainly worth telling and this is a well-intentioned, solid film with fine work from Knightley, Official Secrets is too heavy-handed and drab, and falls far short of procedural thrillers such as “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight” and “The Post” or broadly entertaining whistleblower stories such as “Erin Brockovich.” Read full review

The Guardian Benjamin Lee

Feb 1, 2019

Official Secrets is a well-intentioned retelling of a daunting act of courage and as a vehicle for informing more people of who Katharine Gun is, it’s effective, carefully laying out the incremental stakes as well as her noble intentions. Credit for this however lies almost solely with Knightley. Read full review

Johnny Oleksinski

Aug 27, 2019

Ralph Fiennes as Gun’s eventual lawyer, however, is totally forgettable, as is much of the standard-issue, self-important docudrama. So much of Gregory Bernstein, Sara Bernstein and Gavin Hood’s screenplay arrives with a thud that it might’ve been written with clenched fists. Knightley’s overwrought performance doesn’t help either. Read full review

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User Reviews

Samsons

Mar 18, 2020

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It’s no wonder that somebody from the NY Post would rate this movie 38/100 especially when you have facts presented that put the US and the UK in a not so ”favorable” light concerning the war in Irak.… Expand