If you are working for a government agency where you stumble upon a top secret information which says that your government is deceiving the people to go to war with third world country, probably you would leave it at that. But Katharine Gun (Keira Christina Knightley), a British translator who works for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency leaked the information and made headlines in 2003.
Official Secrets directed by Gavin Hood was based on real events in England and Katherine character played by Keira was top notch. During her routine work, she read an internal mail about how Unites States asked Britain to spy on diplomats of some countries to swing the UN resolution vote regarding the invasion of Iraq. She leaked the mail because her conscious says so. The top secret was published by The Observer newspaper. It is an another ‘Snowden‘ moment only it happened 10 years before in Great Britain.
The movie is a long over due and Keira did justice to her character. Though the leaked top secret information made headlines, George Bush (US), Tony Blair (UK) and coalition forces invaded Iraq promising to recover the weapons of mass destruction and to overthrow Saddam Hussein bypassing the United Nations.
The invasion toppled Saddam’s regime but it came at cost of lives of soldiers and childrens and top of that coalition forces failed to recover the alleged mass weapons of destruction. In between, Yasar Gun (Adam Bakri) who is married to Kathrine, life also falls apart because he is a Muslim from Middle East who is seeking permanent residency in England. When Kathrine was arrested and later released on bail awaiting trail, Yasar was detained and almost departed from London before Kathrine stops through legal measures.
One scene which I liked the most is during an interrogation where Katherine was asked by Scotland Yard: “Why did you leak the information even though you are working for the government and bound by Official Secrets Act 1989?” Keira says, “Governments change, I work for the people of the country.”
Court appointed lawyer for Kathrine asks her to get in touch with lawyers who specialises in human rights cases. Liberty, a group of volunteer lawyers, took up her case and decide to defend her with full of their abilities. Katherine keeps on reminding to everyone that she leaked the secret to save lives and her Muslim husband has nothing to do with it.
Ralph Fiennes role as defence attorney was another notable in the movie especially during the court room climax scene. When the prosecution took the case after almost a year and decided to withdraw charges at the last moment, Ralph went on a rampage and said that the prosecution decided to drop the case because of the records we subpoenaed. The documents would have damaged the Tony Blair government.