Director: Steven Spielberg
Year Released: 2017
Rating: 2.0
Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), an analyst for the RAND Corporation who spent time in Vietnam during the war, smuggles classified information out of his office (in what would become known as the "Pentagon Papers") about reports of the futility of war in Southeast Asia commissioned by (then) Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) - he sends them to the New York Times to print, but when President Nixon threatens them with legal action, The Washington Post's owner Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) and executive editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) have to decide whether they should run the material (and risk imprisonment). Spielberg's adopting the fuddy-duddy Capra Aesthetic with this, a genial Flag Waving movie that only exists in the current age as a defense of the press against the presiding Emperor-In-Charge, who keeps asserting all news is "fake" - Streep is even given the line, "We don't always get it right, you know we're not always perfect, but I think if we just keep on it ... that's the job." The heart is there, but it could have used more tension.
