Salting the Battlefield | |
---|---|
Genre | Drama, Thriller, Crime, Action |
Written by | David Hare |
Directed by | David Hare |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | Celia Duval |
Running time | 93 minutes |
Production companies |
|
Original release | |
Network | |
Release | 27 March 2014 |
Related | |
Turks & Caicos |
Salting the Battlefield is a 2014 British political thriller television film, written and directed for the BBC by the British writer David Hare. It follows Page Eight , which aired on BBC Two in August 2011 and Turks & Caicos , which aired in 2014. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Following their flight from Turks and Caicos, Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) and Margot Tyrell (Helena Bonham Carter) hopscotch around Europe to evade capture by MI5. After spotting one of his former recruits, disguised as a passing jogger, Johnny relocates once again and instructs former colleague Rollo Maverley (Ewen Bremner) to leak news of Prime Minister Alec Beasley's (Ralph Fiennes) corrupt dealings with Stirling Rogers (Rupert Graves) and his Bridge Foundation. Margot secretly keeps in touch with Johnny's pregnant daughter Julianne (Felicity Jones). In London, Acting Director General Jill Tankard (Judy Davis) contacts Deputy Prime Minister Anthea Catcheside (Saskia Reeves) and offers her services in aiding Catcheside's embattled husband.
Johnny and Margot separate on their way back into Britain to confound their pursuers. While Johnny disappears and travels via the English Channel, an errant MI5 agent runs into Margot on a train and alerts his superiors. Rollo aids Margot's escape and delivers her to Reverend Bernard Towers (Malcolm Sinclair), a friend of Johnny's from Cambridge. Johnny contacts Belinda Kay (Olivia Williams), editor-in-chief of The Independent and details the workings of the financial deals surrounding Beasley, Rogers and The Bridge. Kay's publication of the information causes Rogers to resign from the foundation and admit to his misdeeds, despite Beasley's assurances.
Julianne contacts Margot after learning that her boyfriend (Shazad Latif) was an MI5 plant who has bugged her flat. Johnny arranges a meeting with Beasley at 10 Downing Street, demanding he call off the surveillance against his daughter. Beasley reveals that he intends to leave office and assume the title of Consul General to Iran, with American funding and UN cover. Johnny is then summoned to a meeting with Tankard, who reveals that she engineered Beasley's downfall after seeing the extent of the Page Eight, the intelligence that started the scandal. Through her burying of Bill Catcheside's legal troubles, Tankard has Anthea, Beasley's planned successor, in her pocket. Tankard asks Johnny to return to MI5, an offer he reluctantly accepts in return for Julianne and Margot's safety and Maverley's reinstatement into MI5.
Back in Margot's apartment, Johnny sees Margot leaving for Hong Kong to work in a start-up. Margot mentions that Julianne is in labour, accompanied by her mother. The film closes with scenes of Margot leaving, Johnny walking across London to the MI5 headquarters, and Julianne giving birth to her child.
The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies. They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The resident population in 2023 was estimated by The World Factbook at 59,367, making it the third-largest of the British overseas territories by population. However, according to a Department of Statistics estimate in 2022, the population was 47,720.
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith,, generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British politician and statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister to command a majority government, and the most recent Liberal to have served as Leader of the Opposition. He played a major role in the design and passage of major liberal legislation and a reduction of the power of the House of Lords. In August 1914, Asquith took Great Britain and the British Empire into the First World War. During 1915, his government was vigorously attacked for a shortage of munitions and the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. He formed a coalition government with other parties but failed to satisfy critics, was forced to resign in December 1916 and never regained power.
Mary Katherine "Mary Kay" Fualaau, was an American teacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child. Letourneau was 34, and the child, Vili Fualaau, was 12 years old when she initiated the sexual abuse. He was her sixth-grade student at an elementary school in Burien, Washington. While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's daughter. With the state seeking a seven and a half year prison sentence, she reached a plea agreement calling for six months in jail with three months suspended and no contact with Fualaau for life, among other terms. The case received national attention.
Jane Wyman was an American actress. A star of both movies and television she received an Academy Award for Best Actress (1948), four Golden Globe Awards and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 1960 she received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for both motion pictures and television. She was the first wife of President Ronald Reagan.
Judith Davis is an Australian actress. In a career spanning over four decades of both screen and stage, she has been commended for her versatility and regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Frequent collaborator Woody Allen described her as "one of the most exciting actresses in the world". Davis has received numerous accolades, including nine AACTA Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards.
Julie Anne Smith, known professionally as Julianne Moore, is an American actress. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is particularly known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in independent films, as well as for her roles in blockbusters. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Emmy Awards.
WKRP in Cincinnati is an American sitcom television series about the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional AM radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta, including many of the characters. Wilson once told The Cincinnati Enquirer that he selected WKRP as the call sign to stand for C-R-A-P.
Spooks is a British television spy drama series that originally aired on BBC One from 13 May 2002 to 23 October 2011, consisting of 10 series. The title is a colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the activities of the intelligence officers of Section D in MI5, based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid. In the United States, the show is broadcast under the title MI-5. In Canada, the programme originally aired as MI-5, but later aired on BBC Canada as Spooks.
William Francis Nighy is an English actor. Known for his work in several stage, television and film productions, he has received several awards including a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award, and also has had nominations for an Academy Award, a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award.
Sir David Rippon Hare is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. Best known for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hoursin 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Reader in 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.
An answer song, response song or answer record is a song made in answer to a previous song, normally by another artist. The concept became widespread in blues and R&B recorded music in the 1930s to the 1950s. Answer songs were also popular in country music in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, sometimes as female responses to an original hit by a male artist or male responses to a hit by a female artist.
Carnival Film & Television Limited, trading as Carnival Films, is a British production company based in London, UK, founded in 1978. It has produced television series for all the major UK networks including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky, as well as international broadcasters including PBS, A&E, HBO and NBC. Productions include single dramas, long-running television dramas, feature films, and stage productions.
The Hollywood Palace is an hourlong American television variety show broadcast Saturday nights on ABC from January 4, 1964, to February 7, 1970. Titled The Saturday Night Hollywood Palace for its first few weeks, it began as a midseason replacement for The Jerry Lewis Show, another variety show, which lasted only three months.
Elizabeth Evans May is a Canadian politician, environmentalist, author, activist, and lawyer who is serving as the leader of the Green Party of Canada since 2022, and previously served as the leader from 2006 to 2019. She has been the member of Parliament (MP) for Saanich—Gulf Islands since 2011. May is the longest serving female leader of a Canadian federal party.
Andrew Levitas is an American painter, sculptor, filmmaker, actor, writer, producer, photographer and restaurateur.
The Detroit Film Critics Society is a film critic organization based in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 2007, and comprises a group of over twenty film critics. To become a member, the critic must have reviewed at least twelve films a year in an established publication, with no more than two different critics per publication admitted. It presents annual awards at the end of the year, for the best films of the preceding year.
Page Eight is a 2011 British political thriller, written and directed for the BBC by the British dramatist David Hare, his first film as director since the 1989 film Strapless. The cast includes Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon, Tom Hughes, Ralph Fiennes, and Judy Davis. The film was followed by Turks & Caicos (2014) and Salting the Battlefield (2014), which were broadcast on BBC Two in March 2014. The three films are collectively known as The Worricker Trilogy.
Turks & Caicos is a 2014 political thriller television film, written and directed for the BBC by the playwright David Hare. It follows Page Eight, which aired on BBC Two in August 2011 and is followed by Salting the Battlefield.