Boring, long, and too preachy.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Blistering performances.

As few people pointed out,this is based on the true story of Morris and Lona Cohen,an American couple who were spying for the KGB and lived in England when they were arrested in 1961.This TV movie made from the play of the same name,is about an also real couple,Bill and Ruth Search,and their daughter,who lived across the Cohens,and whose house was used by MI5 to watch on the Cohens. In real life,the Searches and the Cohens of course knew each other and were friends but there is no evidence that they were especially close as this movie shows them to be.This story over-dramatizes this situation,making Ruth Search incredibly attached to Lona Cohen,to the point that when the latter is arrested,it breaks Ruth's heart.Even as a play however,is hard to believe,because we are told the two women have been friends for about 3 years,they were not lifelong friends,and Ruth Search(Burstyn) in the play and movie still has her husband and daughter to care for,she is not a lonely woman.The shock of the true identity of their neighbors is true enough but the complete breakdown of Ruth is not justified in any way.Still,the movie is interesting ,in the fact that it is based in the unusual story of the Cohen couple who after being imprisoned 8 years for spying,returned to Russia.

Television adaptation of Hugh Whitemore's play about an older British couple in a suburb of London circa 1961 learning from the police that their best friends of three years--a Canadian couple who live across the road--may be involved with a notorious Russian spy. Not-bad "Hallmark Hall of Fame" production is a bare-bones dramatic presentation coasting on the performances of its cast, with the emphasis on Ellen Burstyn as the otherwise-friendless housewife who feels betrayed by chatty, lively neighbor Teri Garr. Garr is working seriously here, but there's too many close-ups of her looking puzzled, asking the same redundant questions; Burstyn fares a bit better, even if her accent comes and goes (which can be overlooked). Still, Ellen's character deteriorates under the pressure of falsehood far too soon (everyone, at some point, becomes a liar in this teleplay--a gimmick that is heightened in the dialogue but, thankfully, not underscored too strenuously). The downbeat conclusion--and the two useless melodramatic tags--is unsatisfying, as is Alan Bates' role (and over-the-top performance) as a British agent. Worth-seeing for the intriguing first-half, but the hysteria which follows feels canned.

Someone mentioned that the plot of this movie was not very believable - unfortunately, it was based on fact (names changed, etc). The Krogers were an absolute menace and deserved everything they got, along with the rest of their spy ring, and how on earth were they able to flee the US and insinuate themselves into Ruislip?? However, I enjoyed the movie very much, although I missed the first 30 minutes (have now seen the entire thing - excellent movie IMHO). I couldn't understand why Ellen Burstyn's character was so distraught, if I had discovered my 'best ' friend had been lying to me all along I'd have gone right off her! Teri Garr's character despicably blamed her friend for HER deception!!! But then, that's how these fanatical types are, never wiling to assume responsibility for their own actions and always looking to blame the other guy. The setting was very good, very authentic for late fifties/ early sixties suburban London, and the period was captured perfectly.

"Pack of Lies" is a very interesting drama which is aptly named. MI5 agents, led by Alan Bates as "Stuart," skillfully manipulate a well-intentioned British family into believing that they are merely police on a routine investigation who need to use their home in the London suburbs "just for the weekend" in order to surveil a suspect who has been tracked into their neighborhood. As it becomes clearer what is really going on and what is at stake, the agents practically take over the house, the British couple are encouraged to lie to their teenage daughter about the unseemly details they have learned, and then the husband must lie to his increasingly distraught wife in order to spare her the trauma of the final ugly truth. Everyone must deceive the family's friendly neighbors by pretending that nothing at all is amiss, for it turns out that they are Soviet spies who have been lying their heads off to maintain their cover. In the end, as British agents close in for the inevitable arrest, Ellen Burstyn, as Barb, is subsumed in guilt, completely torn between her loyalty to her best friend, Helen (Teri Garr), while at the same time feeling totally gullible and cruelly betrayed by her. This is a great TV movie with excellent performances all around, but especially from Alan Bates, Teri Garr, and Ellen Burstyn. In fact, the latter is so convincing in her interpretation that at certain key moments it almost defies description.The interesting thing, of course, is that this effective movie is based on a true story, as was pointed out in another's comments. "Helen and Peter" seemed so affable and caring but were in fact part of the infamous atomic spy ring that gathered American nuclear secrets after WWII and transmitted them to the Soviets. They escaped the US when the Rosenbergs and others were arrested, only to surface in London some time later under assumed names.