Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

runamokprods A sort of 'Michael Moore goes to England' documentary about the gradual leaching away of civil rights under Tony Blair. Always interesting and entertaining, and occasionally deeply disturbing. Yet for me it just misses greatness through it's one-sided arguments that sometimes feel a bit forced, without the human voice that Moore puts on his films. The difference between someone blatantly, admitting 'this is my perspective', as a film- maker like Moore does, and this film's pretense at 'objectivity' makes it a bit harder to take, and somehow less affecting than films that are more honest that they are stating (in this case quite effectively) a specific point-of-view. None-the-less, I'd re-watch this, and I'm sure enjoy it again. But here in the States, the 'Daily Show' does it better, and a lot more succinctly.

bob the moo It is probably best that I hold my hands up from the start and say that, in regards this film I am a member of choir. I am pretty liberal but on the subject of terrorism legislation I do think I have a right to an opinion because of my experiences as a Northern Irish man in England. I note that some critics of this film have criticised it for the way that it does paint things in a very bad light and, while I agree to a point, I do also think that there is a certain amount of "it'll never happen to me" thinking, similar to the "if you have nothing to hide what is the problem" school of thought. However having been arrested and held for being on the same street as Prince Charles would later visit that same day (after several court appearances, the charges were thrown out). So I do have a certain amount of sympathy with those that fear being wrongly targeted by those given the powers to do so if they wish.However I must be careful not to let me agreeing with the politics of the film totally cloud my view on it because, as much as I agree with it, it is not that great a documentary. It is too simplistic in some regards and it just seems to throw examples at the screen in the aim of hitting the audience with so much stuff it has no time to digest, consider or reflect. The strongest documentaries build their case and let you come along with them to the point where you find it hard to disagree; those films that simply dollop it out are doing the audience a disservice and tend to be those that fail to win over anyone other than those who already agree with the message. So it is here and it is a real shame because moment by moment it is compelling stuff. While nowhere near the degree where we cower in our homes after curfew, liberties are being squeezed and the many examples make it hard to ignore as an issue. However it doesn't pull it together in a focused fashion and ultimately seems to think the point will just make itself. The rather rebellious tone suits some of the material but at times goes too far and again makes this a film "for the audience" – the closing song is the most extreme example of this and quite unnecessary.It is a shame it is not better because it is an important topic but, while it is compelling stuff, the failure to really deliver a killer argument or a strong structure is its undoing in regards winning the hearts of the undecided viewer. Goes without saying that, for the choir, it is great stuff, but I wanted it to do more than just tick the target audience box.

Cliff Hanley This is a collection of true stories, all products of the UK's New Labour government and the so-called War on Terror. It opens with the bus-full of peaceful demonstrators (friends of mine) on their way to Fairford to complain about it's being used for bombing expeditions to Iraq, stopped, brutally forced to remain on the (no-toilet) bus and escorted back to London by a horde of police vans and bikes. The patch-work continues with Walter Wolfgang, the elderly and eminently respectable party member roughed up by ape-men for shouting 'Rubbish' at Jack Straw, Pinochetist Home Secretary. Rose and Ellen, two young sisters arrested on a peaceful demo at an airport, held in solitary for 36 hours, thrown out in the night, their money and mobiles stolen by the police, and warned that speaking to each other would violate their terms of bail. Mouloud Sihali, found innocent in court, but then imprisoned in his own home for two years. Omar Deghayes, a British resident who has been held in Guantanamo for five years and is being left at the mercy of the government that murdered his father. Also the RAF war veteran arrested for wearing an anti-Bush and Blair T-shirt; an innocent man shot in a police raid based on a faked-up claim about a Ricin poison factory, and a major new change in the law to allow the government to stop one man from keeping his lonely anti-war vigil outside the Houses of Parliament.Britain has a history of control freakery: in Malaysia after 1945 we separated off the ethnic Chinese population, putting them in reservations where they could be controlled while we maintained war with the Chinese insurgents outside. The UK today is looking ever more like a large reservation, with the sea for a wall. The government contends that we are threatened from outside, and just like anyone with a paranoia problem, makes that threat a reality by its pre-emptive wars. This allows it to behave as the 1939 government did, removing all our rights for our own good.Right to Protest, Right to Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Right not to be detained without charge, Innocent Until Proved Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. All listed on the screen, and one-by-one, ripped off. Taking Liberties portrays these real stories of liberty loss using up-dated interviews, citizen/journalist footage, newsreel, stunts, and comment from comedian Mark Thomas, Observer writer Henry Porter, Tony Benn, Amnesty, academics and lawyers. Narration from Ashley Jensen (Extras, Ugly Betty); a powerful soundtrack with tracks by, among others, Oasis, Radiohead, The Stranglers and Franz Ferdinand. It almost loses pace 80 minutes in, but the content carries it. By turns horrifying and good-humoured, it's being touted as the UK's equivalent of Fahrenheit 9/11, but it is without the former's flaws, and it's of much more immediate importance. A pity that the distribution deal limited it to out-of-town multiplexes in the UK, so much of its target audience were unaware of its very existence. CLIFF HANLEY

ShadeGrenade It had to happen. Noting the success of the Michael Moore anti-Bush polemic 'Fahrenheit 9/11', someone in the U.K. has tried to fashion a similar movie attacking Tony Blair's Labour Government. The trouble is there's not enough evidence to support the extraordinary claims it makes. Yes, the arrest of Maya Evans and Milan Rai for reading out the names of Iraq war victims opposite the Cenotaph in Whitehall was regrettable, as was the detaining of Walter Wolfgang under the terrorism laws for heckling Jack Straw's speech at a Labour conference ( you must remember that the security men were keen to avoid a repeat of the previous year's conference when Blair was heckled by Tory infiltrators ), and Gloucestershire police preventing a bus load of anti-war demonstrators from protesting outside RAF Fairford, but do these and other incidents combined paint a picture of a totalitarian government hellbent on destroying cherished freedoms? No!It is easy to make a film of this kind. You scour the news archive, cherry pick the bits that best serve your agenda, interview malcontents, string them together, overlay ominous sounding narration and music, and hey presto - you've got yourself a conspiracy movie. The only M.P.'s to appear are Boris Johnson, Ken Clarke and Clare Short. Is Chris having a laugh or what?Ask yourself this - if ( as Chris claims ) we really do live in a police state, why hasn't the Government suppressed this film and thrown its creator in jail? No mention of Britain under Thatcher, of course, when trade unions were banned from G.C.H.Q., when police stopped and searched cars during the 1984 Miners' Strike to block pickets from travelling around the country, when the G.L.C. was abolished simply because the P.M. did not like it, when Clive Ponting nearly went to jail for speaking the truth about the sinking of the Belgrano, when Trident protesters at Greenham Common were smeared as Communist sympathisers, when miners were beaten senseless for trying to protect their jobs, when London saw the worst riots in its history thanks to the hated poll tax and when Thames Television lost its franchise because it made a programme - 'Death On The Rock' - the Tory Government did not like. More recently, we have had Section 28. That, Mr.Atkins, was a true police state.When the evidence is not deemed strong enough to support his argument, he brazenly distorts the truth. For instance, he claims Blair has taken away an ancient right to protest near Parliament. That right never existed.Its true that, in the wake of the London bombings, security has had to be tightened up and one expects that. Which is the greater evil - having one's right to demonstrate curtailed or being murdered by fanatics? In all the palaver over identity cards, it seems to have been forgotten that the Tories were once keen on the idea. So come off your hobbyhorse, Chris.There's an interesting documentary to be made about civil liberties, but this is not it. I note that ads have been appearing on pro-fox hunting websites. When it comes out on D.V.D. it should be double billed with Channel 4's 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', another steaming turd-pile of lies and half-truths. If you're thinking of seeing this, don't bother.CODA: Its November 2013, and the Tory-led coalition government has ruled out a full enquiry to the Ed Snowden claims that the N.S.A. have been monitoring U.K. emails and phone calls. "The innocent have nothing to fear!", says foreign secretary William Hague. If Tony Blair had said that when he was P.M., the Murdoch press would have had a field day. Any plans to make 'Taking Liberties 2', Chris?