Steven Spielberg, with Jeff Skoll's activist Participant Media bankrolling his projects, has been on a kick for sentimental "Great Progressive Moments in History" epics with Lincoln and Bridge of Spies. However, this has to be his least emotionally invested project since "The Terminal". The trailer for this film just screamed "I'm making this for the Oscars" with its main theme
of freedom speech from almost 50 years ago made in an era when we once again have a president and press embattled and starring two - count em -
multiple Oscar winners. But then Speilberg gets shut out at the Oscars. He gets a Best Picture nomination nod only because there are ten slots available. Make it nine and this would likely not have made the cut.
So I watch the film and my worse suspicions are validated. Tom Hanks plays Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post, Meryl Streep plays Katharine Graham, owner of the Washington Post. The whole film has to do with the question - to print or not to print the information derived from the Pentagon Papers, government documents that show that from the 1950s the American government knew they could not win in Vietnam but continued to send American young men out to die in vain. But there is an injunction against the New York Times for publishing this same information, and the case is headed to the Supreme Court in a week. But the story gets muddled between two issues - first, the screenplay keeps getting off track with the female empowerment storyof Katharine Graham, a woman to the manor born who never had to work or worry a day in her life until her husband died and she was left the titular head of the Post. She doesn't quite know how to handle the old white male investors who talk down to her or the decisions that are now hers to make. Second, what EXACTLY is Tom Hanks doing with this role? Is he trying to be Ben Bradlee or is he trying to portray Jason Robards as Ben Bradleee with that obviously fake gravelly voice and pot belly? Instead he seems to be doing a killer Lou Grant.
"The Post" does manage to have some nice tense newsroom scenes, some legal decision suspense as everyone is reminded just how vindictive Richard Nixon can be, but all of the other stuff I mentioned overrides it. Oh, and is there anything more dramatic than the rolling of an old time newspaper press? But just how old time is this film trying to go? "All The President's Men" was set the year after this film is set - 1971 -yet this Washington Post newsroom looks like something out of 1940's "His Girl Friday" with the old Royal typewriters, dingy walls, and poor lighting. And you'd think that the director of "Lincoln" could capture the national confusion and outrage when the public first discovered the government had been lying to them, but no, other than a few protesters outside of the Supreme Court - zip, zilch, nada. The Judd Apatow comedy film "Anchorman" did a better job of depicting public outrage when Ron Burgundy accidentally profanes San Diego's name.
Oh, and the punchline - the final scene is Nixon raving against the Washington Post as a security guard stumbles into the break in at the DNC one year before it actually happened. Since this is reminiscent of the same scene in Forrest Gump, also starring Hanks, is it time for a face palm or applause at the anachronistic irony of the situation? Mildly recommended because, hey, who doesn't love Tom Hanks? Just too bad that nobody showed up to direct the film. An editor would have helped too.
So I watch the film and my worse suspicions are validated. Tom Hanks plays Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post, Meryl Streep plays Katharine Graham, owner of the Washington Post. The whole film has to do with the question - to print or not to print the information derived from the Pentagon Papers, government documents that show that from the 1950s the American government knew they could not win in Vietnam but continued to send American young men out to die in vain. But there is an injunction against the New York Times for publishing this same information, and the case is headed to the Supreme Court in a week. But the story gets muddled between two issues - first, the screenplay keeps getting off track with the female empowerment storyof Katharine Graham, a woman to the manor born who never had to work or worry a day in her life until her husband died and she was left the titular head of the Post. She doesn't quite know how to handle the old white male investors who talk down to her or the decisions that are now hers to make. Second, what EXACTLY is Tom Hanks doing with this role? Is he trying to be Ben Bradlee or is he trying to portray Jason Robards as Ben Bradleee with that obviously fake gravelly voice and pot belly? Instead he seems to be doing a killer Lou Grant.
"The Post" does manage to have some nice tense newsroom scenes, some legal decision suspense as everyone is reminded just how vindictive Richard Nixon can be, but all of the other stuff I mentioned overrides it. Oh, and is there anything more dramatic than the rolling of an old time newspaper press? But just how old time is this film trying to go? "All The President's Men" was set the year after this film is set - 1971 -yet this Washington Post newsroom looks like something out of 1940's "His Girl Friday" with the old Royal typewriters, dingy walls, and poor lighting. And you'd think that the director of "Lincoln" could capture the national confusion and outrage when the public first discovered the government had been lying to them, but no, other than a few protesters outside of the Supreme Court - zip, zilch, nada. The Judd Apatow comedy film "Anchorman" did a better job of depicting public outrage when Ron Burgundy accidentally profanes San Diego's name.
Oh, and the punchline - the final scene is Nixon raving against the Washington Post as a security guard stumbles into the break in at the DNC one year before it actually happened. Since this is reminiscent of the same scene in Forrest Gump, also starring Hanks, is it time for a face palm or applause at the anachronistic irony of the situation? Mildly recommended because, hey, who doesn't love Tom Hanks? Just too bad that nobody showed up to direct the film. An editor would have helped too.