| The Whistle Blower | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Simon Langton |
| Produced by | Geoffrey Reeve |
| Written by | John Hale (book) Julian Bond |
| Starring | Michael Caine Barry Foster Nigel Havers Gordon Jackson Sir John Gielgud David Langton James Fox |
| Release date(s) | December 1986 (UK) 10 July 1987 (USA) |
| Running time | 100 m |
| Country | UK |
| Language | English |
The Whistle Blower is a 1986 British spy thriller film, starring Michael Caine, based on the novel of the same name by John Hale.
Contents |
Frank Jones (Caine) is a retired British naval officer, who is now a businessman. His bright but naive and idealistic son, Robert (Havers), works as a linguist at GCHQ a top secret British intelligence agency, using his love of Russian to listen to various pieces of communication on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
The film opens on Remembrance Day in Whitehall, as the war veterans line up to walk past the Cenotaph, then moves back to a conversation between Jones and his son at Robert's flat some months earlier, where Robert tells Jones that strange things are happening at GCHQ, and he's planning on leaving and marrying an older woman called Cynthia (Dean) he's fallen in love with.
Robert says a Soviet mole was found, and that security is all over the place encouraging people to rat on each other. The higher ups seem convinced that if they don't do something, their American friends in the CIA will stop working with them. Frank isn't thrilled over the marriage plans, and he tells his son before he leaves that it's unlikely anything off key can be happening in the agency. It's obvious that Jones loves his son deeply and wants him to be happy, whatever he may choose for himself.
The scene cuts to a room in British Intelligence, where operatives including Bruce (Jackson) are listening to a tape recording of the conversation between Jones and his son.
A few days later, police report to Jones that Robert has died in a fall in an apparent suicide, and propose a verdict of accidental death is recorded. However, in the midst of his grief, Jones is puzzled by the circumstances of his son's death and decides to use his old skills to conduct his own investigation, and approaches his friend Charles Greig (Foster), who had joined MI6 after his service in the navy. Greig agrees to make discreet enquiries on his part.
Returning to Robert's flat, Jones is confronted by radical socialist journalist Bill Pickett (Colley) who had arranged to meet Robert to discuss the problems at British Intelligence, but Jones rejects his investigative approaches. Jones is also told that he is in the running for a large government contract for his firm, with an implicit undertone that he not make waves about his son's death.
The rest of the movie digs into an examination of the British establishment which is disturbing and ugly, and make Jones question his view of the country he loves. There are strong echoes of the Antony Blunt case and the Cambridge spies. Jones, discreetly pursued by British Intelligence, finds men who easily consider others expendable if their ideas of class and privilege are endangered.
After Pickett is also killed in mysterious circumstances in a traffic accident, having found out the name of the man who Robert wished him to meet and before meeting Jones. Jones is then approached by Robert's best friend and fellow British intelligence linguist Allen Goodburn (Hawkins) at Robert's funeral. Jones gets from Goodburn that it was his good friend Grieg who had approached him as to Robert's feelings for the service. Jones gets Grieg drunk and gets him to confess that he was at Robert's flat the night Robert died. Grirg admits he was there as the service had something on him, but that his job was only to leave the door open and let "others" heavy hand Robert, not kill him.
Leaving Grieg in his drunken stupor, Jones is picked up by British Intelligence and driven to a country house, where he is confronted by Secretary to the Cabinet (Langton) and Lord (Fox). They explain to him that his son was out of control, and was killed as part of a plan to mislead the Americans to the extent of the depth of Russian intelligence's operatives inside British operations, in the hope that they could continue to gain intelligence from the CIA. They have presently left the higher Russian operative in place, until they can assess the extent of the damage caused. They advise Jones that should he go public with any of this information, he and/or Robert's girlfriend Cynthia and her daughter will be killed or at least restrained. As a door to a further dining room opens, Jones notices Sir Adrian Chapple (Gielgud) and concludes him to be the higher level Russian operative.
The film returns to the present, and Remembrance Day parade. Jones confronts Chapple at his home in Whitehall, and gets him to confess to being a spy for Russia. Jones asks Chapple to sign a full confession, which he does, but on approaching the desk where Chapple writes, Chapple points a gun at Jones. Jones turns the gun on Chapple, which goes off and kills Chapple—leaving his signed confession to act as a suicide note, and leave Jones in the clear. Jones returns to the Remembrance Day parade.
The closing credits roll to an ambulance attending the death of Chapple, as Caine walks past the Cenotaph up Whitehall.
The film was largely shot on location in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; home of GCHQ, which forms the premise of the movie. Cheltenham Racecourse, Cheltenham Crematorium and The Promenade feature in the film[1]