The Killing$ of Tony Blair film review ★★★★★

The Killing$ of Tony Blair starts promisingly. Footage of Blair assuring us of a peaceful resolution to the invasion of Iraq is intercut with footage of the actual less-than-peaceful non-resolution. The atmospheric electronic music is subtle and the irony doesn’t need to be. It’s all very Adam Curtis. ‘Oh God,’ you think, as the wobbly synths raise hairs on the back of your neck. ‘The military-industrial complex has been in control all this time. I’ve been duped by Tony Blair and democracy is a lie.’

But then it cuts to the interior of a concrete warehouse. George Galloway is standing in font of some graffiti wearing a black waistcoat, a fedora cocked rakishly over one eye. He looks like an extra from Boardwalk Empire, as if that might make us forget we once saw him pretend to be a cat on Celebrity Big Brother. We’ll never forget, George. Never.

Galloway ‘presents’ The Killing$. This means that he’s shown listening to interviewees – in a variety of waistcoats, sometimes holding a fancy teapot, like an unusually threatening Harrods waiter – and trying out a half-hearted attempt at Michael Moore-style hectoring. He’s also there to explain things. ‘Blair soon earned the nickname Teflon Tony,’ Galloway reveals, ‘…because dirt never stuck to him.’ Cut to a shot of eggs being broken into a pan. Are they dirty eggs? Galloway doesn't say.

Courtesy of The Guardian

But even Galloway’s ripe ‘r’-rolling (‘…the Irrrron Lady’) can’t really diminish the wealth of material that speaks for itself: Blair on the public-speaking circuit, offering banalities for stupid money; Blair in a propaganda video for the oppressive Kazakhstani government; Blair claiming never to have traded policy for cash. ‘I would never do anything to harm the country!’ he says. With his big wet earnest eyes and quivering lip, he looks exactly like he would if he'd just cheated on you.

As The Killing$ jumps back and forth between footage of Blair at different stages of his life and career, you start to feel a little queasy. Here’s young Tony, thickly mulleted and clean of conscience. Here’s old Tony, the skin stretched too tight over his skull, his eyes manically beady. It’s an unpleasantly effective demonstration of how one’s face starts to reflect one’s character.

The nausea only grows as the evidence piles in. Presented with such avarice and duplicity, the stomach churns and the mind recoils. And when The Killing$ ends, not with the black waistcoat and fedora of George Galloway but the black balaclavas and flags of ISIS, the true legacy of Blair’s war, it gives you the chills. No atmospheric music necessary.