The Man Who Broke Britain (2004) (TV)

Director:

Gabriel Range

Writers:

Simon Finch (writer)
Gabriel Range (writer)

Release Date:

9 December 2004 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A devastating terrorist strike wipes out much of Saudi Arabia's oil production; the same day a trader...

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Dean Knowsley	...	Armed Police Officer
Amani Zain	...	Nasreen Hasan

Runtime:

UK:90 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Company:

Wall to Wall Television

Better than the follow-up

The Man Who Broke Britain is a mockumentary by the team that went on to achieve notoriety with the 2006 movie Death of a President.

It shares a number of stylistic tropes with the later movie: setting in the very near future; little-known actors as talking heads, playing participants in the crisis; clever use of news footage, with occasional unobtrusive effects work; several twists to wrongfoot us, and expose our prejudices.

However, I found it more effective than DoaP. The assassination of POTUS, or the threat thereof, is a concept that has been done to death (sorry) in drama and fiction for decades, especially since the death of Kennedy. The Man Who Broke Britain, however, takes a less trodden path, exposing a major threat to the stability of what we like to think of as civilisation. Not terrorism (although that plays its part); not environmental meltdown; but that a small number of highly-paid gamblers in the derivatives market have the potential to screw up and bring down banks, businesses, pension funds, governments, not just in Britain, but across the world.

We all have a mental picture of what might happen if the President takes a bullet: The Man Who Broke Britain reminds us that there are some things bigger than the President. And it doesn't even need a bullet to destroy them.