The Correspondent is a skilful true life tale of the war on journalism

Peter Greste was one of the crack team of international war correspondents working for news channel Al Jazeera.

In December 2013 he was on a break when all hell broke out in Egypt. There was a coup, the people took to the streets in tens of thousands, and Al Jazeera needed a reporter fast. So, Greste agreed.

Australian movie The Correspondent sticks carefully, as far as I can tell, to the facts. It’s also very well made – notable credit goes to director Kriv Stenders and editor Veronika Jenet.

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And playing Grest - for some reason everyone he deals with calls him “Mr Peter” – is veteran Aussie star Richard Roxburgh.

Roxburgh’s had such a long career as a useful co-star on film and TV that you often forget how good he can be.

But inThe Correspondent, there’s no room for doubt. He is the movie, as we follow what happens to Greste after he’s arrested for, essentially, doing his job.

Greste is locked up - along with two other Al Jazeera colleagues - by a government determined to close down any opposition at home, and more importantly, overseas.

They’re selling the idea that the media are in league with the hated Muslim Brotherhood, and any journalists saying otherwise must be terrorists.

Greste is shocked. Throughout a long career, he’s always assumed he’s protected by his journalist status. And this isn’t some tinpot dictatorship in the back of beyond.

This is Egypt at the height of the Arab Spring, when it seemed everyone was marching inexorably towards democracy, justice and the rule of law.

But as recent events have proved, there are no guarantees anywhere in the world. Justice – even in the best of places – is whatever the government says it is.

Greste realises this case was never about whether he was a terrorist – how do you prove you’re not? This is a war against the unfettered media in general. To do that, they need to drive a wedge between Greste and his two Arab colleagues.

It’s an easy story to reduce to convenient melodrama – noble journalists versus corrupt foreign military, maybe – but it’s more complex than that.

The Correspondent tells its story carefully and meticulously, so that each twist drives home as powerfully as it must have done for the real-life Peter Greste.

The obvious comparison is with another jail story set in the Near East, Midnight Express.

But where Billy Hayes was caught bang to rights for smuggling drugs, Greste is jailed on a trumped-up charge, with therefore no defense, apart from public outcry.

Which he finally turns to.

His case is picked up all over the world, and the pressure is put on the Egyptian authorities.

But – again, as we’re seeing right now – authorities don’t often take kindly to being shown up in a bad light. Particularly when the bad light is really the only one there is.

To The Correspondent’s great credit – I loved it, by the way – it doesn’t seem to be preaching. This is what happened to this man, and it’s all true.

But at the end, it makes its real point. This is happening to journalists – to journalism – all over the world.

Some 1700 journalists have been killed worldwide, just for doing their job. In 2023, 779 journalists were jailed in 45 countries. And we take the people doing this dangerous work for granted at our peril.