Worricker: PBS treads where Hollywood dares not go
Bill Nighy was born to play Johnny Worricker, the mordant, insolently capable, brazenly intelligent British spy in the Worricker trilogy, a series of brilliant, exciting, and politically explosive espionage films from celebrated playwright David Hare.
Bill Nighy was born to play Johnny Worricker, the mordant, insolently capable, brazenly intelligent British spy in the Worricker trilogy, a series of brilliant, exciting, and politically explosive espionage films from celebrated playwright David Hare.
Featuring a dream cast including Michael Gambon, Judy Davis, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Winona Ryder, Christopher Walken, and Olivia Williams, Hare's trilogy takes a deep, hard, and highly critical look at the war on terror.
The first feature, Page Eight, aired two years ago as part of PBS's "Masterpiece" series. Its two follow-ups, Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield, will premiere on the public TV network at 9 p.m. Sunday and Nov. 16.
(You don't need to watch the first to enjoy the others, but it helps.)
Nighy, 64, plays Johnny Worricker, a veteran analyst with Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5, who is as atypical a movie spy as can be: He's not alcoholic, manic-depressive, suicidal, or otherwise tortured.
Lanky, elegant, with an ear for poetry, Worricker has a deadly character flaw - at least, as it affects his chances of promotion. He has an unshakable belief in justice and his moral compass always points to true north. Can a spy afford to be ethical? the films ask.
Set during the first years of the war in Iraq, Page Eight is about Worricker's discovery that Britain's hulking, bullying Prime Minister Alec Beasley (Fiennes) was lying when he denied he was involved in the CIA's extraordinary-rendition program or its use of torture.
Worricker narrowly escapes Beasley's wrath and moves, in Turks & Caicos, to the Caribbean islands of the title for a well-deserved retirement.
That is, until he meets a group of business leaders who are using the island to launder dirty money - millions of dollars they filched from taxpayers after signing fat contracts as private contractors in the war on terror.
Unable to ignore the call of justice - or the fact that he has been recognized as a spy - Nighy teams with two fellow spooks, his former lover Margot (Bonham Carter) and Curtis Pelissier (Walken), a shadowy figure sent by the CIA to recover the stolen money.
Walken is a treat to watch. He drops his action-movie schtick to play Pelissier, a man as thoughtful, pensive, and self-aware as Worricker.
In Salting the Battlefield, Worricker and Margot go on the run across Europe after making a narrow escape from the Caribbean. A fast-moving thriller, it's about Worricker's dangerous plot to bring down prime minister Beasley.
Hare's films address important moral questions Hollywood won't touch.
They force us to consider the true role of intelligence agencies. Are they supposed to provide dispassionate, nonpartisan analysis, or must they help the partisan agenda of the current party in power?
And they lambaste the belief that we are in the midst of a bona fide world war and should therefore give our leaders unlimited power to wage it.
TELEVISION
Worricker: Turks & Caicos
9 p.m. Sunday on WHYY-TV12
Worricker: Salting the Battlefield
9 p.m. Nov. 16 on WHYY-TV12
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