"Hidden Agenda" deals with the (rather clumsy) murder in Northern Ireland by British security forces of an American lawyer (Dourif) working for an civil liberties NGO, and the subsequent efforts of his girlfriend and co-worker (McDormand) and a high-ranking British police officer (Cox) who is assigned to investigate the incident to uncover what happened and why. It's certainly no secret that the British security forces overstepped the bounds of their authority on numerous occasions in Northern Ireland, and had the makers of the film concentrated in that, this could have been a fine political thriller.

Unfortunately, the team of writer Allen and director Loach lay it on way too thick as McDormand and Cox's characters uncover a conspiracy on the part of the Tory party and the British military-industrial complex to undermine the Labour party and bring Thatcher to power. This, of course, takes place at the instructions of the CIA (gasp!),and heavy-handed parallels to the 1973 coup against Allende in Chile (long one of Loach's hobbyhorses) are thrown in to drive the point home.

Once this less-than-hidden agenda on the part of the filmmakers becomes apparent, the remainder of the film becomes thoroughly predictable, and the viewer is struck by how forced and unrealistic much of the dialogue is, and all the talent of the cast cannot rescue it from becoming an annoyance. In conclusion, I can only recommend this film if you want to see an example of why Ken Loach is vastly overrated.

One one level, this is a good movie, with excellent acting by McDormand and Brian Cox. Cox reminds me sometimes of Brando and other times Richard Burton. In this, he is more Burton-esquire and very believable as a fair minded investigator who gets into something very deep.

It's that "something" that bothers me. Loach is a socialist who throws in a lot of leftie-conspiracy stuff as fact. Here he takes shots at Thatcher, Kissinger, the US, etc., and the documentary style of the film might let these opinions pass as fact.

Made in '90, it is a relevant look at how a democratic government should deal with terrorism. The British then were dealing with many of the issues we face now in the US.

Another disappointing entry, this time in the fictionalized political thriller genre, is Hidden Agenda (1990),which poses questions it fails to deal with, let alone answer, and also goes overboard to work up audience interest in the main characters only to reveal at the end that most of them don't deserve our attention.

In addition to this parade of characters, who start off looking and seeming sympathetic, but actually have feet of clay after all, Ken Loach's boring and superficial TV-style direction with its constant emphasis on Look Back in Anger dialogue exchanges, certainly does not help.

Worse still, particularly grating is the leading male protagonist who is all bluster but absolutely no action.

The only good note, so far as "Hidden Agenda" is concerned, is that the technical quality of the M-G-M DVD rates 10/10.