Review of Salting the Battlefield (2014) by Walter M — 02 Mar 2015

"Salting the Battlefield" starts with British Prime Minister Alec Beasley(Ralh Fiennes) waking up at 5:05 am, next to a copy of a Margaret Thatcher biography on his nightstand. Any comforting dreams he might have had are ruined by the rude awakening of a scandal involving himself, Stirling Rogers(Rupert Graves) and The Bridge Foundation. Plus, Beasley would desperately like to know where Johnny Worricker(Bill Nighy) is and not in a friendly way. Making that harder is Worricker and Margot Tyrrell(Helena Bonham Carter) making the most out of their Eurail passes.

In trying to wrap up the Johnny Worricker trilogy, writer-director David Hare takes the wrong approach with "Salting the Battlefield" by relying too much on past continuity, especially involving scandals and conspiracy and not enough effort in creating a stand alone story for this installment. That leads to an awkward mix of intrigue and chase through the first half of the movie which is nowhere near as good or fun as "Hopscotch" before becoming a more personal and compelling story for the second. What matters in any case are the always welcome Judy Davis, Olivia Williams and Felicity Jones also being in the cast this time around.