The Post

Certainly in the past several decades Hollywood has delved into government cover-ups. If not government, big business which is usually linked to government. At least one film akin to "The Post" is Alan J. Pakula's "All the President's Men" '76, which was about the exposure of the Watergate incident-- "The Post" is about a major governmental cover-up of the Vietnam War.

 

Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) is the first female publisher of a major American newspaper-- The Washington Post. With the help from editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), Graham races to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spans three decades and four U.S. presidents. Together, along with Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk), Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) and Fritz Beebe (Tracy Letts), they must overcome their differences as they risk their careers-- and very freedom-- to help bring long-buried truths to light.

 

Others to round out the cast are Sarah Paulson as Tony Bradlee, Ben's wife, Bradley Whitford as Arthur Parsons, Bruce Greenwood as Robert McNamara, Michael Stuhlbarg as Abe Rosenthal, Jesse Plemons as Roger Clark, Alison Brie as Lally Graham, Katharine's daughter, David Cross as Howard Simons, Zach Woods as Anthony Essaye and Carrie Coon as Meg Greenfield.

 

This was intensely, but subtly directed by the incomparable Steven Spielberg ("Duel" (TV movie) '71, "Jaws" '75, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" '81, "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" '82, "Jurassic Park" '93, "Saving Private Ryan" '98, "The Terminal" '04, "Munich" '05, "Lincoln" '12, "Bridge of Spies" '15) plus many others and TV. With all the films about government corruption, espionage, 'big brother' and the like, it would be so tempting for Spielberg to direct this like so many other films with similar topics, however the way he was able to extract a subtle intensity from his characters gave it that difference we just don't see in similar films. Although both Streep and Hanks are consummate actors to enable to pull this off, it still takes a director with an amazing amount of finesse coupled with chutzpah to give us, the audience, that something extra so as to allow us to see a different film. It was creatively written by Liz Hannah (TV and short) and Josh Singer ("The Fifth Estate" '13, "Spotlight" '15) plus TV and video short. Even though I'm sure these two were passionate about what they wrote about, since Hannah obviously has the more minimal amount of experience and received top billing above Singer, she must've had a super amount of passion and a good deal of the ideas for script. Singer having not only more experience, but with the films that deal with sensitive subject matter as with this film, definitely gives this a wallop of a script to contend with. And last but not least there's John Williams' subtle, yet powerful score that works so well with this. He has scored so many of Spielberg's films, i.e. "Jaws", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Jurassic Park", "Lincoln", "Bridge of Spies" and others, which makes him the obvious choice to score this.

 

If you are an individual that is intrigued with government cover-ups, conspiracy theories and the like, you will be in for a treat, but even if you're not political, like I am, the direction, acting along with a tight, cohesive, suspenseful script will more than make up for what the film is about. With Oscar nominations looming, it could come out a winner. We'll see.

 

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                     Rated: PG-13                                      116mins.