This film/miniseries with quite confusing background - also known as The Diplomat in the UK and U.S., produced by Screen time Australia for the Australian subscription television channel UK.TV - is a proper thriller with mind-twisting and shooting elements, but due to length (almost 3 hours) and multilayer plot is often difficult to follow. Frequent flashbacks repeat themselves and do not provide any additional value to the general story. Behaviour of some officials is rather unrealistic and the link Russian mafia - nukes brings along several clichés and predictable ending. The cast is good, without distinguishable characters or performers though; I found Rachael Blake as Detective Chief Inspector Julie Hales the most convincing one. The series is for you if you like sophisticated spy and mob series, otherwise it is "lengthwise challenging". Even Australia has given the world more interesting thrillers, not speaking of Brits.

The people who made this movie need to look up the word diplomatic immunity. The story is so full of plot holes that it makes Grand Canyon look small.The story starts out with the main character getting pulled over in custom (which is highly unlikely since he's a diplomat) Than after a few hours/days with interrogation he all of a sudden is whisked off to Australia for witness protection along with he's ex wife. From than on out its get confusing and I couldn't figure out if getting caught in custom had been the plan all a long, But what I gather was that he's involved in smuggling a nuclear bomb into Australia and he got the key that could set it off. The MI6 is involved or so it seems, I got the impression it was just two desk clerks who cooked up the idea with some wage confirmation from their superior, but that part never really get clear. It is too long and the storyline goes in too many different directions ,and it never really gets clear why he smuggled drugs in the first place. *************** Spoilers ***************spoiler *******************spoilers****** spoilers The Australian police in Sydney seem to make one mistake after another for no comprehensive reason. they gotta be the most incompetent cops I've ever seen They see the main character "steal" a phone from a nearby kid, they see him talk while he runaway from them, yet they don't question him about the phone call at all. Later as they are about to search a car dealership for the bomb, they fail to see a car that drives away just as they enter the perimeter, even tough it happens right in front of them. I also doubt the local police alone would be fit to handle a case like smuggling of a nuclear weapon, I think a higher authority would be brought inn quite early on.

In America (aka Region 1), millions of yankees have been duped into renting this title under the impression that it is a 94-minute long MOVIE--not a tepid British TV miniseries styled after Jack Bauer's "24," without most of the budget, killing, or excitement. In fact, the climax of the 93-minute Part Two of THE DIPLOMAT (a more apt description of this story than the Brit TV title, FALSE WITNESS) shamelessly steals one of the season-ending scenes from "24." But would Americans shell out one red cent for THE DIPLOMAT if they knew in advance it was 187 minutes long, and chock full of title character Ian Porter's flashbacks about his only child's disastrous loss (and by "chock full," I mean literally EVERY FIVE MINUTES, with a really cheap sepia-toned, shaky camera technique reminiscent of director Ulli Lommel at his cheesiest!) While Dougray Scott as Porter tries to create what James Bond would be like if he was a pathetic, mostly clueless and totally graceless homely man with nothing to live for, all the other characters in THE DIPLOMAT are even stupider, incongruous caricatures. If you need three hours of only occasionally interesting tedium to prove forever that NOT EVERYTHING on Brit TV is Masterpiece Theater-quality, THE DIPLOMAT may be just the ticket for you. It shows how shrewd Alistair Cooke was in not being buried, since he has no grave to spin in!

I viewed it on NBN last night the full version. I found it very visually dynamic, and the acting and action very exciting. I suppose watching three hours of this should have tired me, but it didn't. As a female I found the male principal actors very interesting. Although being a bit unshaven was a bit - well emphasizing their masculinity a little bit too much. But that's not a spoiler just a comment. The tempo through out was to me consistent and the final solution was energetic and thrilling. One query though, can you use mobile phones to ring internationally, I thought satellite phones could be traced? The cinematography was brilliant, showed Sydney off very well. Just one comment, is there no customs for boat arrivals? Possibly not if they transferred to a local boat from some other out at sea. And after they blew up the nuke ? people were watching the flash etc. Hope the jets were not effected, that might have been a little creative. But who cares it was just a fictional movie. I don't think the plot went beyond the point of probability. From what I know there is not necessarily any collusion between secret services or police forces. Unless it suits.I found it very enjoyable and stimulating, and gave it a high rating for me. I'd like to see it again too!