Critic's Grade: A+

The Leviticus of political thrillers is Bernardo Bertollucci's The Conformist,Exodus is Costa Garvas' Z,and Genesis is British CH#4's A Very British Coup.
The movie is based on a 1982 book of the same title by Labour MP Chris Mullen and concerns a conspiracy on the part of the CIA,MI-5,and Fox news chairman Rupert Murdoch to get rid of a Leftist Prime Minister.
The book was derided as a leftist fantasy by the Murdoch tabloid press untill a senior MI-5 officer,Peter Wright,confessed in Spycatcher that he and his colleagues if fact tried every dirty trick inside and outside the law to get rid of Labour PM Harold Wilson.
Harry Perkins,played by Ray McAnally(the Bishop in The MIssion) is no sooner installed at 10 Downing Street than his phone is tapped,his mail is opened,and the contents leaked daily to Rupert Murdoch and his gutter press.Murdoch sits in a hot tub reading CIA dispatches while instructing his minions on how best to turn this into embarrasing headlines and photos of hapless Harry.
This gets so regular that the PM uses press conferences to predict next days headlines in Fox newspapers.IN Chile,Allende used to do this with El Mercurio,predicting what perverse nonsense this CIA funded newspaper would invent.
A Very British Coup was syndicated in 30 countries,leading to a flood of exposes that this same unholy trinity,(CIA-MI5-Rupert Murdoch) were behind the ousting of Australian PM Jeremy Whitlam,and heavily influenced the election and policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

All Reviews by Fred Landis
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