The Killing$ Of Tony Blair

Dir: Sanne van den Bergh, Greg Ward

2016

****

The Killing$ Of Tony Blair is a crowd-funded film that asked for £50,000 and ended up with £164,000. It is safe to say there are many people around the world that dislike the former British Prime Minister and as the film points out, for very good reason. The film was preaching to the converted as far as I'm concerned but I had hoped it would be accessible to a wider audience and I believe it is. The use of archive footage and the overall structure of the documentary was very good although the initial scene whereby George Galloway knocks on Tony Blair's office and asks to be seen without an appointment wasn't a promising start. There weren't too many surprises as was promised, not for most people I wouldn't have thought, but there were many important reminders and an up to date and comprehensive exploration of Blair's rather negative legacy. To call the film one-sided is ridiculous, its intention is to show the wrong-doings of one man and his team and it does so, almost effortlessly. I think the issue I had with the overall production is that I think it was rushed. It is clear that the film makers wanted to release the film to coincide with the Labour leadership contest, where the 'Blairites' that are still in the party were trying to rid the party of the new (old) progressive left. They failed and I believe they would have failed with or without the release of the film, so I think it would have been better to polish and fine-tune the film a little more, as there are a few problems. I don't hate George Galloway, he speaks a lot of sense but I'm not sure he was the right person to present. Galloway, once sacked from the Labour party by Blair after he stood up to him and protested the war on Iraq, has had his name dragged through the mud somewhat and even though any ideas of revenge would be justified (although this really isn't about that) someone else, anyone else, would have been a little less of a distraction and would have been just that little bit more impartial and would therefore have held the attention of a wider audience. It is this wider audience that the film really should have tried a little harder to get the intention of, the film came and went with very little discussion. However, the cast of talking heads the film can boast is impressive and gives the overall message a great deal of weight. Galloway has a lovely voice but his script is often a bit too poetic for the sake of it, he almost completely lost me when he started churning out bible verses but when it counts his rich rhetoric works a charm. I think they could have delivered more considering the amount of extra money they raised but the message and the key points it wanted the viewers to know and realize were certainly crystal clear. Galloway want to see Blair sent to the Hauge for war crimes, this document is a very clear and convincing case for why he that isn't such a crazy idea.