“Undercover: Exposing the Far Right”, which aired on Channel 4 this week, “isn’t just a good documentary – it’s a great one”, said Leila Latif in The Guardian.
Havana Marking’s 90-minute exposé follows investigators from anti-racism advocacy group Hope Not Hate as they “track down far-right extremists”. The film focuses on “two heroic figures”: researcher Patrik Hermansson and journalist Harry Shukman, who go undercover to infiltrate meetings and groups with secret cameras.
It’s “nail-biting work”, and it feels as if the pair are in “extreme danger” for much of the film: a “hidden camera could be detected or a slip of the tongue could expose them” at any moment. Luckily for them, the extremists are “incapable of shutting up”. Britain First‘s London Mayoral candidate Nick Scanlon “uses just about every slur for Black people during a brief conversation with a relative stranger”, while academic Emil Kirkegaard “spouts eugenics talking points with a side of fixation on penis size”.
The film goes “far beyond anti-immigration issues”, shining a light on the disturbing rise of “well-funded and media-savvy influencers using discredited ‘race science'” to “legitimise prejudice for a new, disenfranchised audience”, said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph.
Much of what we see is “unsettling”, and the “high stakes” drama of the undercover investigation gives the documentary the feel of a “spy thriller”. It has all the elements of a “rollicking story” including “tension, risk, relevance” and a “knife-edge investigation that intrigued till the end”. Woven with “just enough” details about the members of Hope Not Hate and the undercover journalist at the heart of the action to “lend their crusade emotional heft”, the film is “thrilling to behold but chilling to contemplate”.
Among the most “striking” footage is the casual conversations recorded between German activist Erik Ahrens and ex-private school teacher Matthew Frost, which are peppered with “abhorrent ideas” such as the “correlation between race and IQ”, said Dan Einav in the Financial Times.
The film hit headlines earlier this week when it was dropped at the last minute from the London Film Festival for fears over staff safety, said Carol Midgley in The Times. “Hmm. It must be thrilling for the far-right to be considered so powerful.” Marking’s frustration that “fear is its own form of censorship” rings true: “Yes, we are in the aftermath of the Southport riots, but it all feels a bit feeble.” Still, the eleventh-hour cancellation meant the film gained more publicity than it otherwise would have. “Sometimes life works in mysterious ways.”