Written by Martin Stellman

Directed by David Drury

At the USA Copley

SHREWD filmmakers might figure that Winter 1987, the season of Reagan-Contra-Iran scandals a-go-go, would be a propitious time to release movies about government hypocrisy and national security cover-ups. That would explain the American debut of Defense of the Realm, an otherwise forgettable 1985 British thriller that happens to be about an hypocritical government engaged in a national security cover-up.

Defense of the Realm follows Nick Mullen (Gabriel Byrne), an ambitious young reporter on a story that could make his career. A series of anonymous tips leads Mullen into a spate of stories linking Dennis Markham (Ian Bannen), a prominent Labor Party member of Parliament, to a communist spy ring. The stories--racy Fleet Street stuff filled with call girls and foreign agents--first destroy Markham's marriage, then his career as he is forced to resign his office.

The only doubt in Mullen's mind is provided by Vernon Bayliss (Denholm Elliott), a washed-up old timer on the newspaper staff who insists Markham was framed. Bayliss was pals with Markham in the Communist Party back in the old days, though, and Mullen finds this plus his own obsession with front page stories reason enough to ignore the old man's pleadings.

Elliott, the virtual personification of rumpled Englishness, gives the same endearing performance he did as the dad in A Room with a view. Unfortunately, Elliott's character dies of a heart attack 45 minutes into the picture, leaving Byrne and a mediocre, no-name cast to carry the balance.

Bayliss' death awakens Mullen's lingering doubt, as he pursues a new story of sinister government machinations to hide the truth. The predictable series of close calls and astonishing revelations continues on schedule, until the eventual triumph of truth as guaranteed by a free-if imperfect press.

Defense of the Realm has its moments--exciting scenes of newspaper presses and ceremonies in the linotype room, stuffy British parlors and subtle jabs at clumsy American diction--but the picture plays like a second-rate TV drama. Wrapped up in the perceived all-importance of his plot, director David Drury neglects such film elementals as character development and cinematography. Although the picture revolves around Mullen, we learn next to nothing about him as a person, save what can be gleaned from his decor (most notably graced by classical records and a synthesizer).

We are left equally in the dark about Markham and Bayliss, by far the movie's most interesting characters. Ultimately, the picture disappoints not because it is bad or stupid, but because it is dull. With such a timely and important topic, it's unfortunate that Defense of the Realm is plagued by the humorless heavy-handedness that so often mars movies dealing with contemporary politics.