Not so much a movie about Brexit as it is a feature-length propaganda piece built around capitalist fantasies of industrial deregulation.
Director/writer Martin Durkin also serves as our on-screen guide. His 'documentary' work to date is a strange bedfellow to his Revolutionary Communist political activism – this is the same Martin Durkin that brought the world the much-derided and debunked 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' in 2007, before trying to defend it against experts' criticisms with such insightful arguments as, "You're a big daft cock." Durkin clearly loves the camera, but I'm not sure it's requited. There's a comedic scene early on where he gets into a taxi in Brussels and asks to go "to the EU". The taxi driver gives this example of Durkin's "ask a silly question" stance (which he adopts throughout) an appropriate look, and an unintentional microcosm for the whole film is created.
The arguments of 'Brexit: the Movie' are pretty well-worn (and delivered as inevitabilities, despite the weight of historical evidence suggesting otherwise
as we slowly emerge from a prolonged recession triggered by – oh, look! – deregulated, uncontrolled industry). The gist is that an abundance of regulation is straitjacketing the creativity, vim and, indeed, vigour of British capitalists who would otherwise be blinding the rest of us with their brilliance, lifting the poor commoners out of their hovels and catapulting Britain into the big time (as though the suits, jargon and short-term thinking based on greed and self-interest they actually indulge in are imposed upon them from on high). The evil EU – the story goes – is the faceless, undemocratic source of all regulation, ERGO leaving it would usher in a paradise on Earth for all who swear allegiance to the Union Flag. Basically what the American Republican party keep promising its electorate and continually failing to deliver.
And that – aside from a muddy portrait of the EU filled with common misconceptions and distortions, designed to set the scene early on – is IT! If you don't buy these hackneyed delusions of the rich, or see the link between their ability to more easily increase their own wealth and your own situation, there is literally nothing else here.
Hot button topics like security, sovereignty and VAT aren't aired at all. Even immigration doesn't get a look in – maybe Durkin felt the issue was too contentious, or weak, or that maybe by the time his film came out that that whole topic would have been swept under the carpet. As things have panned out it seems weird to have have ignored it. There is also a distinct lack of expert opinion, despite a wealth of uninformed or biased views from pundits and politicians.
And yet, 'Brexit: the Movie' is slickly-made and persuasive enough if you don't actually think about or question what you're being told. It could generate a lot of 'Leave' votes from the very working classes that deregulation threatens the most, and in that small way it is perhaps to be admired as a 'job well done'.
