Circle of Deceit

The first of four TV movies starring Dennis Waterman as John Neil, an ex SAS man and Falklands veteran pressurised into work for the security services.

His first task is to infiltrate an IRA gang led by Godfather figure Liam McAuley (Peter Vaughan). Unbeknown to Neil it is the same man responsible for the murder of his wife and child in a terrorist bombing at a circus near an army camp in Germany.

Some good direction and performances and intelligent characterisation and plotting though, perhaps inevitably, that old chestnut of the gang member who takes a dislike to the hero and is suspicious of him, is not avoided. Just as reliable is the smooth-talking devious 'controller' he is responsible to (Derek Jacobi). And Waterman has not quite developed Neil into the distinctive character he would later become. So not a bad start but a couple of the others to follow are better, one considerably so.

This is the first of the four films of "Circles of Deceit", and this circle of deceit is probably the most shocking and upsetting one. It is entire Irish and deals with the IRA, who are expecting a shipment of ammunitions from Libya, and the veteran Waterman is asked to infiltrate and report their business, which he does, while the daughter of the old leader of the terrorists (Peter Vaughan, always scary,) has a young son whom she wants to keep out of the IRA business at any cost. Waterman has seen her somewhere before, he recognises her, but she does not recognise him and learns to trust him after he (spontaneously, by accident) saved her son from a fire brought on by some IRA skirmish. They develop a relationship which is ruined by his engagement and its consequences, while Peter Vaughan as the very concerned father by accident happens to wreak the tragedy. It is a great introduction to the series, of which all four films are extremely intriguing and captivating, but this one is perhaps the most exciting of them for its constantly increasing tensions.