Plot For Peace review

The secret life of Jean-Yves Ollivier

Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Plot For Peace begins as it ends, with a round of Patience. It’s a game very much like life, observes our mysterious card player – who once spent years trying to deal the world a better hand.

Every bit as compelling as any Hollywood political thriller, this fascinating documentary tells the largely untold story of French-Algerian businessman and diplomat Jean-Yves Ollivier (a dumpy, bespectacled, razor-sharp man with a decided touch of the George Smileys about him), who played a key role in dismantling South African Apartheid during the Cold War years via some incredible, covert backroom manoeuvres.

Quietly heroic in every way.