Look, I'm not the most informed person when it comes
to politics. I tend to have opinions that sound like cop outs. A long time ago,
I realized that politics is an endless rabbit hole. It's impossible to be fully
informed. I try to keep up some, but it's not going to be enough for a lot of
people. Mostly though, I try not to pretend that I know more than I do and to
keep an open mind. That makes me pretty a pretty ideal audience for The
Report.
The Report is
a hard movie to be apolitical about. It tells the story of the Senate staffer
who led the investigation into the CIA's interrogation program after 9/11. The
timeline of the movie is pretty recent, ending in 2016. Many of the central
characters are active political figures. The topic has become very polarized
over the years. I didn't have much more than a headline knowledge of the topic
going into the movie. I'm sure there are people who have strong objections to
how things are depicted in the movie, but I'm taking the movie at face value.
Anyway, its stance does gel with my outlook on life. I don't believe the ends
justify the means.
At this point, I hope everyone knows the basics
about what happened with the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation program. You know,
waterboarding and all that. The CIA's argument is that their tactics led to
valuable information getting extracted. Doug Jones (Adam Driver) found in his
extensive study that those tactics didn't actually work. Whether or not you
agree is almost immaterial.
What depressed me about this movie was the reminder
of how broken the system is. The antagonist of the movie is bureaucracy. No one
is willing to accept blame. Everyone is responsible in some way through
ignorance, intent, complacency, or incompetence. It bothered me how plausible
the ways that Jones was stonewalled were. I can easily imagine anyone from
either side of the aisle running into the same problems when trying release an
unflattering study. The movie tries to find a happy note to end on. The report
did eventually get released. It was hard, but technically the system did work.
It's sad that it's that hard though.
The movie itself is really well made. Spotlight
is a natural and fair contemporary comparison. Driver gives a very internal
performance. He expresses Jones' frustration in small outbursts, normally by
himself, rather than in big public speeches. It's the kind of performance I'd
love to see get an Oscar nomination but is probably too quiet to be noticed for
that. Annette Bening plays Senator Dianne Feinstein. I'll be honest, I don't
have a strong opinion about the real Feinstein one way or the other. Bening
plays the character Dianne Feinstein wonderfully in the movie though. You can
see her formulating every thought before she says anything, She knows how the
game is played and that she needs to be patient She can't shoot her shot too
early, as good as it might feel to do so. No one plays their role like a hero
or a villain. It all rings emotionally true.
Given that this is very dry material, covering a
long and mostly uneventful period of time, the movie zips along nicely. It's
easy to track the different shifts in time, It presents a lot of wonky
information in very digestible ways. It's impressive work for director Scott Z.
Burns' theatrical debut feature*.
*He directed an HBO movie in 2006, a few shorts, and
a few episodes of TV.
It's pretty easy to guess the filmmakers' political
leanings from the film, but I think the movie does a good job of spreading the
blame and not letting anyone off the hook. While more of the protagonists lean
left, it points out their failings where it can. Even though the CIA comes out
looking the worst in this, it even shows their side in a number of places.
Hindsight is 20-20 and The Report is aware of that. Now, excuse me while
I got rewatch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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