terrorism
Adam Sweeting
A year ago, Channel 4 aired Jamie Roberts's documentary Angry, White and Proud, the result of a year Roberts spent getting to know members of far-right splinter groups. Now here's the follow-up, this time the result of two years' research into Islamic extremism in Britain.Amid the mountain of hair-raising material he came away with was the revelation he kept until last (except it had already been trailed fairly heavily, but never mind). This was that the man he'd come to know as Abu Rumaysah, who lived in Walthamstow and used to make a living by renting out bouncy castles for children's Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Earlier this year, Sky Living showed The Enfield Haunting, a tale of eerie events in a 1970s council house. One of its stars was Timothy Spall, playing a paranormal researcher. Maybe he had a premonition that his son Rafe would carry on the family's supernatural tradition in the leading role of Harry Price: Ghost Hunter (★★★★★).Anyhow, Spall Jr was shrewd, witty and skilful in the role of a 1920s spookbuster called in to investigate the mysterious case of a politician's wife, Grace Goodwin, who had been found wandering naked in a London market. Part of the problem was that she and Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The title sequence of Bond number 24 is a bit of a nightmare, with Sam Smith's mawkishly insipid theme song playing over a queasy title sequence featuring a hideous giant octopus, but the traditional opening mini-movie is an explosive chain reaction which doesn't disappoint. This takes us to Mexico City on the Day of the Dead, where Daniel Craig's ghoulishly attired Bond is on a mission to take out a chap called Sciarra.He does this at some length, casually demolishing an entire city block and then engaging in an epic punch-up inside a loop-the-looping helicopter. But back in London, Bond, Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Rev Julie Nicholson, bereaved by her daughter’s death in the 7/7 bombings, became known as the vicar who can’t forgive. Her 2010 memoir, also entitled A Song for Jenny, detailed the way her pain undermined her vocation, to the point where she gave up preaching the following year. Playwright Frank McGuinness has been working on this adaptation since the book was published, and in human terms, it’s superb. But it doesn’t have much to say about Julie’s faith: where it came from, and why her daughter’s death specifically changed it, given – sadly – that murder has been with us longer than Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Today, terrorism means killing as many innocent people as possible. Fear is created by completely random attacks, so that no one feels safe. But there was a time, in the past, when political anarchists would focus their attacks on selected targets and avoid civilian casualties. For a year, begining in August 1970, the Angry Brigade brought armed struggle to Britain, setting off some 25 bombs, mainly aimed at the property of the rich and powerful (although one person was slightly injured). But they were a serious embarrassment to Tory prime minister Edward Heath and the whole Establishment.At Read more ...
Mark Sheerin
Thanks to its international festival and a thriving catalogue of fringe events, May brings a great deal of noise to Brighton. Putting artwork into this saturated landscape can never be easy. But Nathan Coley has managed to inject some critical thinking and reflectivity.HIs best-known works, quotations in illuminated text, blazon themselves on the mind. They occupy a tidy niche and reproduce well in books, magazines and social media updates. So when you first see his work here on the south coast, in an 11th-century church no less, you might for a moment get a sense that, were this not a cosy Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The idea of a movie spin-off from BBC One's spy show Spooks has been lurking with intent ever since the tenth and final series ended in 2011. Finally it's here, helmed by director Bharat Nalluri (who shot the first and last episodes for TV) and with Peter Firth's Sir Harry Pearce at its centre. Where, as the Spookfather-in-chief, he had to be.Since Spooks stuck unswervingly to its grand tradition of bumping off leading characters – diehards will still be wiping away a tear at memories of Rupert Penry-Jones's Adam Carter, Richard Armitage's Lucas North and Nicola Walker's Ruth Evershed – Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
During its 10-season run on BBC One between May 2002 and October 2011, Spooks built a lasting reputation as a superior espionage thriller, charting the battle of a squad of MI5 agents to protect the realm against its fiendish and unscrupulous adversaries. Despite the inevitable plot-holes and sometimes incredible storylines, Spooks managed to keep itself anchored in the bleak realities of intelligence work, where it was wise to trust nobody and if you were paranoid, that's because the bad guys really were out to get you.As a string of leading actors such as Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
You haven’t had to actually watch the brutal executions staged by Islamic State (IS, or ISIS or ISIL, as it’s also known) to register them: just a single image registered has been more than enough to horrify. Managing to penetrate the world’s consciousness to such an extent has surely been one of the terror group’s most singular achievements. As one contributor to This World’s latest bulletin from the frontlines of Islamism, World’s Richest Terror Army, put it, the organization combines an ideology drawing on seventh-century principles with a 21st-century grasp of social media technology. In Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Hostages certainly whips along. We’re straight into conflict from the very start of the first episode, except it soon transpires that the real action will be taking place elsewhere. And it’ll be tighter, more excruciating than the bash-down-the-door atmosphere of the opening scene, which serves to introduce us to Adam Rubin (Jonah Lotan), a top operator in Israeli counter-terrorism who’s on his last day of service and concluding his final mission successfully. We’ll be seeing more of Rubin later, or at least realising it’s him when he takes off his balaclava, having changed role from siege- Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
From Michael Mann, the director of the monumental crime epic Heat and the original and best Hannibal Lecter movie Manhunter, this lumbering saga of cyberhacking is really rather disappointing. Not that it doesn't include several torrid action sequences in exotic locations, while the basic theme is at least urgently topical. It's just that there's little evidence that the project fired Mann's imagination, or inspired him to breathe plausible life into his characters.The set-up is as widescreen as you could wish. A nuclear plant in China is sabotaged by an unknown hacker (Mann makes sure we get Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Finding a clear narrative among the deadly uncertainties of the long-lasting stand-off between Israel and Palestine is a challenge. Israeli documentarist Nadav Schirman, drawing on a real-life story, has honed The Green Prince down into a bare story of the ongoing contact between Gonen Ben Yitzhak, an officer of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service, and Mosab Hassan Yousef, a young man from the very centre of the Palestinian leadership who becomes his agent.It’s a remarkably unadorned film, concentrating on the direct testimonies of the two players. They tell their stories direct to camera Read more ...