Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Peter Morgan has written three screenplays that show Tony Blair as a gifted politician (The Queen, The Deal, The Special Relationship). Michael Sheen (who also played David Frost in "Frost/Nixon") has played Blair in all three with uncanny resemblance to Blair, particularly his phony smile. In the first and third, the Morgan/Blair character has some principles and in all three he connects well with the electorate (American as well as British in "Special Relationship")... a lot better than the Queen or Gordon Brown, and seemingly better even than Bill Clinton.

It was Winston Churchill (who had some American ancestry) who proclaimed a "special relationship" between the UK and the US, to wheedle more from Franklin Roosevelt, who does not seem to have much liked him. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton seem to have bonded personally as well as politically. "The Special Relationship" shows Clinton helping push peace on Northern Ireland, as well as political advice and aid to Blair in coming to power, and Blair returning the favor by providing some legitimation for Clinton as Ken Starr was hounding Clinton. Cherie Blair (Helen McCrory, returning to the role she played in "The Queen") asks her husband what he wants in return. I thought his appearing with Clinton was the quo for Blair's treatment as prime minister in a White House visit before Labour's victory, but Morgan makes it the quid and support for ground troops in Kosovo if Milosovich did not withdraw Serbian ones the quo.

Morgan does not know what Clinton and Blair said to each other in direct communications, and I would not credit the self-serving and otherwise politic memoirs both have published. Morgan has made both savvy. Clinton is the senior party, with the much larger military arsenal. Given how loquacious Clinton is, I have my doubts that he cut off phone conversations abruptly, as he repeatedly does in the movie, but the reliance of both leaders on advice and grounding from their very intelligent wives (both of whom were successful attorneys) is plausible.

Even with Bill Clinton coiffure and speech patterns, Dennis Quaid (Frequency) does not look like him. Quaid seems more disciplined and less emotionally needy and charming than the man he plays. Hope Davis looks very much like Hillary Clinton and I found her totally convincing, as Sheen and McCory were, again, as the Blairs — though the interpretation of them in Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" is more interesting than Morgan's very sympathetic one(s). To me, it seems that Morgan has made Queen Elizabeth II (in "The Queen"), Richard Nixon (in  "Frost/Nixon"), Idi Amin (in "The Last King of Scotland"), and Blair (here and in "The Queen") suspiciously sympathetic. (I haven't seen "The Other Boleyn Girl," but the casting of Eric Bana as Henry VIII makes me suspect that his part is softened.)

There seem to be a lot of sets for a tv (BBC/HBO) movie, including the White House's Oval Office, and the entrance (inside and out) of 10 Downing Street.

Though the larger scale of the White House staff is stressed, Blair's advisors are more numerous on the screen, though Kerry Shale as Harry, has one cutting speechette in the Oval Office after Blair has spoken eloquently of stopping genocide in Kosoco.

I don't know if Morgan and Sheen are going to proceed to the tragic next act of Blair backing the invasion of Iraq despite the British intelligence consensus that there were no weapons and mass destruction and invasion and legal counsel that the invasion was illegal. In the penultimate scene, following the US Supreme Court intervening to place George W. Bush in the White House, Clinton warns Blair about the ruthlessness of team Bush and Blair indicates a wish to continue a special relationship with whomever is commander in chief of the US military.

The only bonus feature is an HBO promotional "making of" featurette of about five minutes.

©2010, Stephen O. Murray

BTW, my review of "The Deal" is on associatedcontent.com
Both Quaid and Davis have been nominated for Golden Globes, though I doubt that either will win (Al Pacino and Jane Lynch are my predictions).

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD