''The Trick'' is a 2021 British

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

directed by Pip Broughton and produced by Adrian Bate. It aired on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

on 18 October 2021. The film is a dramatisation of the

Climatic Research Unit email controversy The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (also known as "Climategate") began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) by an external attacker, copying thousa ...

Cast

Jason Watkins Jason Watkins (born 28 October 1962) is an English stage, film and television actor. He played the lead role in the two-part drama ''The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies'', for which he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor. He has also ...

as Phil Jones *

Victoria Hamilton Victoria Hamilton (born 5 April 1971) is an English actress. After training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Hamilton began her career in classical theatre, appearing in productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the ...

as Ruth Jones * George MacKay as Sam Bowen *

Jerome Flynn Jerome Patrick Flynn (born 16 March 1963) is an English actor and singer. He is best known for his roles as Paddy Garvey of the King's Fusiliers in the ITV series ''Soldier Soldier'', Bronn in the hit HBO series '' Game of Thrones'', and Benn ...

as Neil Wallis *

Aneirin Hughes Aneirin Hughes (born Aneurin Hughes, 8 May 1958) is a Welsh actor and singer known for playing Chief Superintendent Brian Prosser in the BBC4 Welsh police drama ''Hinterland''. He won a Best Actor BAFTA Cymru (or BAFTA Wales) for his appearance ...

as Trevor Davies *

Ade Edmondson Adrian Charles Edmondson (born 24 January 1957) is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series '' The Young Ones'' (1 ...

as Edward Acton *

Pooky Quesnel Joanna Gabrielle "Pooky" Quesnel (born 30 April 1966) is an English actress, screenwriter and singer. Early life Quesnel was born and raised in Eccles, Lancashire, along with her five siblings. Her father was born in Trinidad. She read English ...

as Stella Acton *Tara Divina as DS Anita Suppiah *

Rhashan Stone Rhashan Stone is an American actor and comedian based in the UK. He is best known for appearing in many comedy shows such as ''Desmond's'' and ''Mutual Friends''. Stone is also a stage actor who has performed in numerous productions for The Ro ...

as Gareth Ellman *Justin Salinger as DSI Julian Gregory * David Calder as

Sir David King Sir David Anthony King (born 12 August 1939) is a South African-born British chemist, academic, and head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. King first taught at Imperial College, London, the University of East Anglia, and was then Brunne ...

* Andrew Dunn as

Graham Stringer Graham Eric Stringer (born 17 February 1950) is a British Labour Party politician serving as MP for Blackley and Broughton since 1997. Before entering Parliament, he served as leader of Manchester City Council from 1984 to 1996, and chair o ...

Reception

On the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, there were four critics' reviews with an average rating of 60%. ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

''s Anita Singh gave the film a rating of two out of five stars, concluding that the attempts to force the story to be a thriller fell flat. ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''s Ed Cumming found the characters boring and also rated the film two out of five stars. The ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

''s Elle Hunt wrote that the film was lacking in action, but felt that the filmmakers deserved kudos nonetheless for tackling such an important story.

References

Climate change films Films based on actual events {{2020s-UK-film-stub