*** outta *****

3 outta 5

Directed by Steven Spielberg, The Post takes a good, long look at the importance of independence in journalism.  Perhaps a wee bit too long of a look as it can be a bit of a slog at times.  Spielberg drags it to compelling and even though the characters aren’t exactly deep, the actors elevate them.  It’s about fighting back against the system, be it reporters digging up classified information or a lone publisher standing up for what is right.  And former U.S. President Richard Nixon is actually in it because it uses real audio tape of Nixon’s rants against the press so technically he’s a star of a Steven Spielberg movie, which is pretty fun. 

In the 1970s, the Vietnam War is still grinding on and costing U.S. soldiers lives.  What is kept from the public is a document chronicling the slow escalation of the war over decades.  Dubbed “The Pentagon Papers”, portions of this top secret document are published by the New York Times who are immediately muzzled by the Nixon Administration.  This is complicated because the Washington Post has received even more pages and Editor in Chief Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) is hankering to get it on the streets.  Also complicating matters is that Post owner Kay (Meryl Streep) has to keep the Post running but putting the papers out may doom them all. 

For Spielberg, The Post is a movie that he banged out in less than a year as the mammoth post-production undertaking on his next film, Ready Player One was underway (it is due out in late March).  It’s a testament to how skilled he is as a filmmaker he can make a movie in between the release of another movie he had already shot.  The Post takes a while to get rolling, there are some crackerjack scenes of people pouring over documents and snapping, and sometimes settles way back again.  It’s a bit disjointed but Spielberg is too good of a filmmaker to make a movie that is completely boring.  Only just a little. 

A good example of Spielberg taking control is when the classified documents first arrive at the Editor in Chief’s house. People deciding what of thousands of papers are important could be dry but Spielberg sweeps the camera along as the reporters are trying to make deadline and then the lawyers come in and start arguing.  In a very Spielberg flair, Ben’s kid starts selling lemonade to the staffers for 25 cents and Ben shouts out that its 50 cents and later on we see the kid with a stack of cash.  Another great scene right at the start is how Spielberg shows the removal and copying of the Pentagon Papers, and one bit when a hippie girl walks into the Washington Post and literally drops a shoebox of classified documents on the desk of a random Post reporter is grand.  The few scenes of Nixon are shot wide from outside the White House as a very convincing Nixon body double in shadows gestures as actual historical audio of Nixon is used which works fantastically. 

Sometimes when the movie picks up it then kind of hits a wall and slows down.  Such as when the story is ready to go but the film stops to have Streep’s Kay reminisce about her husband and a woman’s place in the world.  It’s as if the movie shut down for three minutes to give Streep her Oscar clip.  Streep does have some decent bits like when Kay decides that they have to publish the story even with the threat of prison by the Nixon government.  What makes putting the story out there so important is that it’s taking into account the lives that have been lost in Vietnam for years, which Spielberg establishes the stakes by a brief opening scene of action in Vietnam.  Spielberg’s frequent musical collaborator John Williams contributes again and it’s nicely subtle as there are long stretches with no music so when the score kicks in, things are important. 

Hanks is basically playing a hard nosed news man who is looking back on history, like his chummy relationship with John Kennedy, and realizing the cozy relationship with news and politics has to fall apart.  Mostly he’s determined to get the story out which is a cliché but Hanks sells it.  Bob Odenkirk is the reporter who gets closest to the story and he has a lot of awesome, low key moments like when he ends up in a random hotel room with all of the Pentagon Papers and is in awe of what it means.  Michael Stuhlbarg pops in a very minor role, however it completes the Stuhlbarg 2017 awards season trio of this, Call Me By Your Name and The Shape of Water and along with his awesome supporting role in Season 3 of Fargo it’s a Sthuhlbarg bingo. 

The Post is a movie that is really made for an Awards Season run, overflowing with talent behind and in front of the camera.  The message of the importance of a free and impartial press is a necessary one and Spielberg makes people reading papers as entertaining as he can.