Anna Politkovskaya knew that tyranny respects no borders
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Times
25-06-2025
- Times
Words of War review — Maxine Peake is fearsome as a Putin critic
A muscular cast, a gifted TV director and an executive producer credit for Sean Penn lift this political biopic above its decidedly creaky limitations. This is the true-life tale of the impossibly brave Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was a committed Putin critic and in 2006 was assassinated in her Moscow apartment building. The touchstones are Veronica Guerin and A Private War. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews Politkovskaya is played with typically fearsome integrity by Maxine Peake, charting the journalist's coverage of the Second Chechen War and her increasingly strident attacks on Putin.'The only terrorist that the Russian people need to fear is their own president,' she writes. Politkovskaya's concerned husband is played by Jason Isaacs , her harried editor by Ciarán Hinds and her nemesis from the secret police by Ian Hart. All are speaking in their own accents. This isn't a bad choice from the director James Strong (Mr Bates vs The Post Office) — nobody wants to watch a bunch of seasoned thesps rolling their Russian Rs like wannabe Bond villains — but it's not entirely successful. It clashes with the physical environment (Russian language signage, newsflashes and headlines) and occasionally flirts with absurdity, as if an Irish newspaper editor is warning a Manchester journalist about an FSB heavy from Liverpool. Other quibbles include a willowy non-role for Harry Lawtey as Politkovskaya's lachrymose son Ilya, and a sympathetic Chechen terrorist who says, 'It's an honour to meet you, Anna Politkovskaya. Back home they write songs about you.' Really? Still, it works. Peake is that good. Isaacs is also that good. And the subject is compelling and timely. The film suggests that Martin Niemöller's famous line about authoritarian regimes coming for the journalists first has rarely been more relevant (see Trump's shakedown of the White House press pool). A powerful closing title sequence, set to Radiohead's Lucky, features a collage of some of the 1,500 journalists killed pursuing stories, claims the film, in the modern era.★★★☆☆ In cinemas from Jun 27 and on digital from Jun 30 Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit to find out more. Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments and follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- The Guardian
Words of War review – Maxine Peake leads line as murdered Putin-critic journalist Anna Politkovskaya
This British-American co-production offers a dramatised portrait of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya (played by Maxine Peake) who was assassinated in 2006. Politkovskaya's gutsy, impassioned reporting on the second Chechen war was highly critical of the Kremlin, the Russian army and Vladimir Putin personally. (The fact that she was murdered on his birthday was surely no coincidence.) Nineteen years after her death, she remains a folk hero worldwide for resistances to autocracy, especially given the rise in repression everywhere and constant threats to journalists. Given all that, the film deserves respect for the subject matter, even though this is a pretty basic rendition of Politkovskaya's story, a little too sticky with hagiographic sentimentality and the cliches of crusading journalist-led movies. It also should be noted that Politkovskaya's family haven't given the film their blessing; some of them may not be happy, for instance, with the thinly written characterisations of their fictional counterparts, like her son Ilya (Harry Lawtey) who is made to seem peevish and self-absorbed even when his feelings are understandable. ('I'm not watching you die!' he bellows at one point.) In fact, the flawed peripheral characters are more interesting than Peake's Politkovskaya, who spends much of the film with her strong jaw jutting out, projecting nobility despite the over-lacquered blond wig inflicted on her. Her best scenes are those in which she spars with Jason Isaacs, who plays her husband, Sasha – a TV journalist clearly proud of his wife but jealous of her success – and with Ian Hart (always a treat when playing the heavy) as a sinister FSB secret policeman who loves history. The gently swelling strings in the score and flat lighting all serve to underscore the televisual atmosphere – even in what should be the film's climatic set piece, the disastrous siege at Moscow's Dubrovka theatre, a cataclysmic event that deserves more dynamic film-making than the bit of slow-motion and sound dimming offered here. Politkovskaya served as a negotiator between the Russian security forces and the Chechen terrorists; she was later poisoned on a plane headed to Beslan, where a school full of children were also killed by terrorists. Politkovskaya survived that particular assassination attempt but those who know her story will dread the arrival of the final blow. It is to the film's credit that over the end titles we see a portrait not just of the real Politkovskaya but also some of the 1,500 journalists worldwide who have been murdered in recent years. Words of War is on digital platforms from 30 June
Economist
13-05-2025
- Economist
Anna Politkovskaya knew that tyranny respects no borders
'The entrance is well adapted for murder,' Anna Politkovskaya wrote in 2003, 'with dark corners in which you are your own rescue service.' She was describing the building in which a fellow journalist had been bludgeoned, but also foretelling her own death three years later. The assassination in her apartment block is the inexorable ending of 'Words of War', a new film about her life and fate. Politkovskaya's story and warnings are vital even now, amid the carnage in Ukraine. Especially now.
