The Post Review

Here we have my final movie review before I dive into my top 10 favorite movies of 2017, which I will then follow up with my top 10 least favorite movies of 2017. Now, to be clear, this isn't the last 2017 movie I'll be watching and reviewing. I'll be spending part of February catching up on some final Oscar contenders that I haven't yet seen that should be expanding once the nominations come out and I'll give you those reviews as I see fit. However, every year there's usually at least one or two movies that play the limited release game towards the end of the year and expand in January that I tell myself I need to see before I do my end of year lists. Thus instead of getting my end of year lists out in late December or early January, mine usually come out in mid to late January. "The Post" is this year's movie that I told myself that I absolutely needed to wait for. I wasn't sure if it would make my list, but I at least needed to see it in order to give it the proper opportunity. The obvious reason for this is that this is a Steven Spielberg movie starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. Enough said there, right? The other reason is that this is a journalism movie and since that's kinda my thing, I was rather excited because I was hoping that it would be this year's "Spotlight."

The movie is based on the true story of the Pentagon Papers back in the 1970's. The subject of said Pentagon Papers was the Vietnam War, which goes without saying that it was one of the more controversial wars that we got involved in during our nation's history. Not many people were a fan of that war and for good reasons. But here we are in 1971 and the Washington Post is trying very hard to keep up with the New York Times when the Times seemingly gets even further ahead by publishing a story based on some secret government documents that essentially state that the United States government has been lying to the American public for the last four presidents about what has actually happened over in Vietnam. They kept saying that everything is going great when everything was not going great. And perhaps 70 percent of why they hadn't pulled out and decided to lie to the public was to avoid public humiliation? Say, what? So yeah, the Times jumped on this story, which caused the government to not be happy, so they made an attempt to shut down the Times and stop them from publishing. Amidst all this drama with the Times and the government, the Washington Post manages to get their hands on those same documents, giving them a tough decision to make.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that I'm an expert in all things journalism, but in case you didn't know, that is my degree that I graduated with fairly recently. I did quite a bit of journalism work during my time with this major, which included an internship at Deseret News in Salt Lake City where I got to interview all sorts of cool people, thus I was able to get a good taste of what it's like in the newsroom. Because of this, I usually have a blast with movies that take us to the newsroom and that's where most of this movie took place. In the newsroom of the Washington Post or in the homes of the people in charge of the Post. Thus I felt at home because it reminded me of my time in the newsroom at Deseret News and also gave me a peek at what life could be like once I get back to another newsroom. Being that this is 1971, I also enjoyed the peek at what it was like at a major news corporation in the 70's, so there's a bit of journalism history in this movie as well. If you are a fellow journalist like myself or are an aspiring journalist, which might be a better way of describing my current situation, then I probably don't need to tell you to go see this movie, but I'm going to say it anyways. You should go see this movie because of the atmosphere and the history provided.

Whether or not journalism is your thing, I'd hope that this is movie you'd be interested because all of us read the news. Or all of us should, anyways. I think it's important to take a look at what happens behind the scenes of a newsroom. What is it that goes behind the publishing of a major article? What emotions are present and what might the discussions be like? Maybe it's the journalist in me speaking, but I think one can have more empathy for journalists if one takes the time to see what it's like in their shoes instead of writing everyone off as horribly biased journalists with these awful agendas when an article is published that you happen to disagree with. The role of a journalist is to be a watch dog. Keep the American public and the government in check. Inform people of the truth that's going on. And that's easier said than done at times. Here we have a really tough situation where the Post had the opportunity to publish the truth about what was happening in Vietnam, but was it the right thing to do? Do they risk losing all their credibility or their status in the journalism world if what they do ends up being unethical? Is it worth risking going to prison in order to get the truth out about something or is it better to sit back and wait for a better time?

These are all themes and situations presented in this movie. The U.S. government is claiming it's illegal to publish their government secrets because it could do damage to the country as a whole, but the Post and the Times feel this information needs to get out so we can be transparent to the country as a whole. While this movie is focusing specifically on what was happening during the Vietnam War, similar situations can be applied today in situations of the media vs. the country. One immediate situation I thought of was the Edward Snowden situation where he felt it was necessary to reveal these secrets so that the public can be aware of, but many people in the government felt that revealing those secrets could be damaging. And that's definitely not the only situation like that. Thus this is one thing that I really appreciated about "The Post" as it gave us a look at what it's like for members of the media in trying to find that balance between acting as the watch dog to inform people of the truth, but also doing so in smart ways that won't jeopardize your business or the country itself. The whole movie managed to be successfully intense as this journalism team was working hard to meet deadlines that were quickly approaching while also decided whether or not to publish.

Thus a lot of praise has to be dished out to this team. Spielberg obviously knows what he's doing as a director and he does a fantastic job at setting everything up and crafting the narrative. As a director Spielberg hasn't always been at the top of his game recently like he was back in the 80's and 90's. The very average turn in "The BFG" is a good example of that. But I think he scored pretty big here. We also have a huge team of actors that come together to make this work. The standout to me was Tom Hanks. He finds himself in quite the stressed situation as the guy who's essentially leading this specific team and is fighting hard to get everything published. He's not the one writing the stories, but he's the boss here and he does such a good job. Meryl Streep is the one playing the owner of the Post, so all the final decisions have to run through her. When things get super heated, she also excels as always as you can feel how stressed she is in making the final decisions. I do get slightly weary of Streep getting nominated every year as sometimes we nominate her just because her name is Meryl Streep. I don't think this is necessarily one of her best roles, but she does good enough that I wouldn't complain at all if she gets another nomination even though Hanks I feel is more deserving this time around.

A lot of attention is rightfully being focused on Hanks and Streep during this awards season, but there is a long list of supporting actors and actresses that deserve credit. I personally liked our "Breaking Bad" reunion with Bob Odenkirk and Jesse Plemons getting plenty of screen time, Odenkirk as one of the main reporters who played a key role in the Post obtaining these papers and Plemons playing one of the legal people trying to keep everyone in check so no one gets arrested. There's even a few moments with Odenkirk and Plemons together, with one specific confrontation between the two being a rather excellent scene. We also have Sarah Paulson, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, David Cross, Zach Woods, Michael Stuhlbarg and many, many more who all come together to play their individual roles. I don't know if any of them necessarily stand out of the crowd and scream the necessity of them being nominated, but they all contribute their own individual piece to the puzzle that make this a pretty good film overall that at least deserves a mention when we start listing off all of the good films Spielberg has made over his career and if this does get a best picture nomination, I won't be upset.

The only thing that causes me to hesitate in declaring this a great movie is that it doesn't necessarily leave a lasting impact and that specifically has to do with the subject matter at hand. They chose to focus on a subject that I feel everyone knows about. I'm far from what you would call an expert on the Vietnam War, but I do know that it was one of the more embarrassing chapters in our country's history and thus the idea that the government kept secrets from the public isn't surprising and given how it all turned out, I don't think it's a surprise as to how this movie will turn out. And that has nothing to do with the filmmaking or the acting itself. It's the subject matter that they chose to make a movie about. No surprises will be had in this movie. There's not any twists and turns that will catch you off guard. When it ends, instead of being shocked and amazed, you'll instead say to yourself that, yes, that's exactly how this story ended. That's the danger when you choose a well-known subject to turn into a movie as opposed to something more low key that we didn't know about. When I watched "Spotlight," my jaw dropped so hard that it hit the ground. I walked out of "The Post" saying that was a good journalism movie, but nothing great. Thus my grade is an 8/10.