Scoop 2024 Movie Review
Honestly pretty enjoyable and well-made. It doesn’t really do anything extra or special and you have to wonder what the point of making it is. There is not much story here and the storylines we follow are dropped and are never finished. But overall it was fun to watch for the historical relevance and the down to earth storytelling.
The story is about how an unfocused low-brow lower class mom sets up an interview with the British queen’s “favorite” son. And he for some reason says yes to it. The goal is to ask him about his Epstein friendship and of course it can only go wrong. What do you say in such an interview? The guy is accused of trafficking young girls to his island. The interview was a giant topic online and pretty much 100% of people agreed prince Andrew looked horrible in the interview. Clearly he was lying and making up stuff at times. We don’t know how much is true, but his facial expressions alone tanked it as no one could believe a word he said.
This movie is way better than Frost/Nixon (2008) that tried to do a similar thing. But that movie was about an interview with a president who was known for never being personal or even understanding himself or his own secrets. So the interview is dull and about nothing while they try to make it exciting and big. Here the interview is in UK. It’s small and not overly significant in itself and prince Andrew is largely an unknown character overall as he is just known for being the son of a queen. It’s the Epstein relationship that’s significant as Epstein killed himself before telling anyone about his crimes so no one knows what he did and hence the interview was anticipated.
The movie does have some weirdnesses to it. Firstly the women who set up the interview are getting together and talking about how men used to be all powerful and control everything and how it’s important to support women and attack powerful men. Which I’m sure does happen in BBC. If this happens, then it will come out, and then no powerful man anywhere would ever agree to an interview with the show. They are literally getting together and planning to demolish powerful men and we are to believe prince Andrew and his giant team never heard a single whisper about this? Right … I think She Said (2022) does it better overall theme wise. We can believe female journalists are getting together to attack a powerful man. As they don’t need to interview him so they don’t need to look neutral. But once you have to entice the subjects you can’t be obviously and transparently hateful and biased.
Then there is the case of unfinished storylines. I really like the Black guy in the office who attacked the lead for being late and setting up random meetings instead of doing her job. Then she sets up this huge interview at the end and we of course assume that he has changed his mind and now respects her. Amazing storyline. Well, just one problem. He never again speaks to her. They set up this amazing story and then we just see them in the same room later on. That’s it? The woman who sets up the interview is also crying to her mom about not being appreciated as she’s a gossip girl and not a serious BBC worker. Yet after she did this amazing work no one is really thanking her much. We just assume it’s there and she is appreciated a bit, but we don’t really see anything happen. So why follow her around if you are not taking us anywhere? They end the movie by telling us via text that she got a new job soon afterwards. Right … so what’s the point here? Why follow her and not someone else? She’s crying about being afraid of being fired and not fitting in or being respected. And then she never really solves any of her problems? That’s it?
I also recommend Brexit (2019). I think Brexit is a bit better. It’s more relevant overall historically so for me it’s way more recommended. But both movies are fun for the runtime though cheap and don’t have much to offer storywise. 6 Days (2017) on the other hand is the best of these UK movies. Still a true story and still a small story. But this time it’s actually a great movie from start to finish.
