The Trial of Tony Blair

Some people really, really dislike Tony Blair. And they're very angry with him, too. That's the overriding impression I get from this film.

At times it plays like it's been written and produced by achingly left-wing sixth formers, and if you, like them, see Blair as a one dimensional villain, then this is probably just the kind of revenge fantasy you'll relish. For anyone who sees both the man and the whole Iraq episode as a tad more complex, then it'll more than likely have you snorting with derision.

I deliberately reserve my criticism for the writer and producers because I actually think the actors are pretty good. Robert Lindsay picks up some of the verbal and physical mannerisms of Blair quite well and hints at more psychological depth than many caricatures allow. And I thought Phoebe Nicholls was excellent as Cherie, but mostly because she's a fine actress no matter what she's in. The problem is the material they're both stuck with, which is more often than not very one-note, cringingly one-sided and sometimes downright ridiculous.

Are we really to believe that everyone, and I do mean everyone, around Blair is constantly needling him about Iraq, making snide comments about his 'legacy', and mocking him openly to his face - yet somehow he either doesn't notice or just doesn't care? His assistants have apparently chosen to stay with him in his post-PM career, yet they behave as though they hold him in utter contempt all the time. Cherie seems at once to be loyal and caring, yet moments later she is distancing herself, even insisting that her name is Cherie Booth. Their relationship seemed completely wrong - again not through any fault of the actors, but rather because the script forces them into being mere mouthpieces for the writer's own heavily biased perspective. We're meant to believe that a protester would be allowed to camp outside Blair's private home and shout insults at him 24/7, even though Blair has left public office by this point and would be entitled to all the protections of any other citizen; that the US would throw Blair under a bus because it was politically expedient to do so; that the UK government would do something frankly risible at the UN in order to pave the way for a prosecution of Blair. All these details are technicalities, you might say, to create the conditions for the drama. But they mount up to such an extent that it screams desperation on the part of the writer, as he scrambles to rearrange the real world furniture in just the right order to bring about the denouement he wants. And much of it is also internally inconsistent. I simply didn't believe these characters were anything more than the writer's own voice shouting at the unfairness of the world.

The very worst moment comes when Blair is at a police station and encounters what has to be the most irksome, self-righteous, self-satisfied character ever to appear on screen. Seriously, this police man is a study in smug, insisting to Blair that his comments are not political but just him being a human being. This moment alone is so absurd in its easy moral reductionism and high self-regard that it poisons the whole piece, leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

There are some chilling, well-filmed moments of Blair having nightmarish delusions about Iraq, but mostly the filmmakers are more interested in seeing Blair suffer and be humiliated than they are in exploring any real psychological truth.

I genuinely didn't like this film. I thought it was nasty and a waste of some talented actors. Whatever your views on Iraq and Tony Blair's decisions, a fantasy polemic like this does no good at all. All it does is serve up a fictionalised version of a real human being to be hated, mocked and punished. Great drama should be about much more than that.

The year 2010 has come and long gone without these events transpiring, and setting it up as a future that never was ensured the movie would quickly render itself outdated, which is only one of many reasons that it was doomed to fail from the outset. The whole conceit of the movie is on that list, as it's utterly ridiculous that these events would occur in reality, and it is so hamfisted that it doesn't even work as satire. I'll confess I'm from the other side of the pond than most viewers and reviewers of the piece, but I appreciate a lot of British television series and movies, with this obviously not counted among them. Putting the special relationship on trial in an intelligent way that explored all of the complexities therein could have been compelling, but the makers of the movie settled for a simplistic version of Bush as the greatest of evil and anyone standing with him the same. It borders on apology for terrorists, as if it was unholy war started by the US that prompted terrorist attacks rather than the reverse, and it paints the problem as Blair being in thrall to Bush, never confronting Britain's past in the region, which preceded US involvement by centuries. It's more straw man argument than movie, and the missed opportunities for something more are reason enough to make this a must-miss piece of political theater and propaganda.

TTOTB is a worthy satire, the type of which could never be found on American television.

Those that see Tony Blair to already be a tragic figure will probably find this film to be both darkly humorous and somewhat sad. It is not beyond the pale to believe that someday a variety of figures related to the Iraq war fiasco could someday wind up at the Hague facing a war tribunal.

The films treats both the Labour and Tory Party with equally contemptible amusement. Understandably, Tony receives the brunt of the beating. At one point a protester is seen holding a placard reading "Tony Blair = 800,000 Iraqi dead". That figure is easily reachable given the current scale of the carnage and the fact that this film takes place in 2010.

It is equally conceivable that as the killing fields of Iraq continue to gestate for a few more years, that whatever benefit of the doubt Bush and Blair are currently given for the rose-colored fantasy of bringing democracy to the Middle east, will have long since wilted. In that they took a regime that was contained, and had US air power flying over it continually for ten years enforcing a no-fly zone, only to topple a sovereign nation against the wishes of the United Nations, a logical case could certainly be made before a war tribunal.

Having unleashed the Furies resulting in hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths, not to mention turning multiple millions more into refugees...well, characters have stood before the Hague previously for a lot less.

The satire of the film derives mainly from the same faith-based morality that drove Blair to act so questionably to begin with. Here, with the walls closing in, abandoned by his former allies and facing a trial, he never can quite get a grasp on the situation he is in. Like Mr. Bush, whose faith-faith certitude never allows him to consider the folly of his ways, likewise, Mr. Blair is intellectually incapable of seeing how anyone could ignore the benevolence of his own heart, as he sent his country to war, squandering its blood, treasure and national reputation.

By the time in the film when new PM Gordon Brown comes to see him, and Blair feels sandbagged in believing that Brown too has abandoned him, Tony criticizes his belief that Brown is merely acting on orders of the White House (and current President Hillary), to which Brown responds, "I wonder who I learned that from."

A very black satirical comedy. Not any less timely than "Dr. Strangelove" which came out at a time when everyone felt the dire threat of nuclear annihilation from either the Soviets or the U.S.. Yet it is also a film that could possibly turn out to be much less satire that prescient drama depending on how events play out over the next half dozen years, the precise levels of the human carnage unleashed by Blair and Bush's geo-political experiment, as well as the international mood and tolerance come the next decade.

As if to prove that Michael Sheen doesn't have a monopoly over the role of Tony Blair, Robert Lindsay gives a magnificently comic performance in this very funny satire set three years in the future when Tony finally decides to stand down. Hilary Clinton is in the White House, George Bush is in rehab, ('he was found comatose on his ranch'. 'I'm surprised anyone noticed'), and the far from charismatic Gordon Brown scrapes through the General Election with a majority of two. It is then that Gordon bows to international pressure and allows Tony to be extradited to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes. Turning on the news immediately after watching this and hearing that one of the serving Prime Minister's closest advisors had been arrested in the 'cash for honours' inquiry only shows how prescient Simon Cellan-Jones' satire really is and how hard it may be to separate fact from fiction.

Alastair Beaton's script is a joy. It's clever, pertinent and side-splittingly funny but it is Lindsay's barn-storming, grand-standing performance as the deluded Blair that lifts this into a class of it's own. He is supported by a wonderfully straight-faced Phoebe Nicholls as Cherie, who chooses to distance herself from her liability of a husband and by Peter Mullan's blank and insipid Gordon Brown. Already a contender for best single programme of the year.

It has been quite a few years since we first expected Blair to go but in 2009/10 he eventually makes the announcement to step aside for Gordon Brown (albeit after a war in Iran and another wave of suicide attacks on London). Deeply worried about his legacy, Blair and his people put a brave face on it and spin for all they are worth but whether it is the protesters, the political isolation or just his own conscience he cannot shake the feeling that the hundreds of thousands of deaths in and associated with Iraq will be all he ever is remembered for. When the UN launches a tribunal into Iraq, PM Brown refuses to veto it and the motion passes – leaving Blair facing prosecution for his decisions in Government.

After several other comedy dramas that gleefully attack the Labour government, this film suggested that it would be nothing more than a liberal fantasy that hits lots of easy targets and forces down Blair down that will always be fictional even if a lot of people seem to wish that it would come true. Sadly this is just what this lazy drama is – and I write this as someone who would gladly see the Blair/Bush actions thrown open to intense public scrutiny with a legal standing behind it. However that does not mean that I chuckled and rubbed my hands with glee as was clearly the hope of the makers of this; and the reason I didn't was down in a big way to the fact that the film never avoids an easy target and rarely backs it up with intelligent material. So we have him heading to trial (we don't see it because we all "know" the outcome), waiting for hours in casualty, having his DNA taken by compulsory order that he introduced and so on – it is so easy and relentless that it is like watching a puppy be kicked at times.

The cast all mug along to this easy beat. Lindsay gives a so-so impression but is an easy mess of nerves and guilt – would be nice to believe it is true but he doesn't ever convince. Nicholls is a shrieking caricature as Booth, while Mullan's Brown and Armstrong's Cameron are just more of the same on a smaller scale. The film does really belong to Lindsay but the material is what lets him down and leaves him doing what I feared he would.

A rather lazy drama then that is like hanging the man on a meat hook and just pummelling him relentlessly while he is defenceless. There is no intelligence or insight here just the hope that the sight of Blair getting "what's coming to him" is enough to draw a big crowd. It drew me this way but it severely disappointed me with all the things it failed to do.