The Report (2019)

Film: The Report (2019)
Stars: Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Morrison, Matthew Rhys, Maura Tierney
Director: Scott Z. Burns
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Every year, I try and try and to see as many movies during this time frame as I can, and I always fail.  The Oscar season is a cruel mistress, with so many films attempting to come to light from Halloween through Christmas, and especially after Thanksgiving.  This process doesn't just leave me at-a-loss-it also causes a lot of movies that I might otherwise have caught in July to be missed or put onto my endless Netflix queue.  A film like The Report, with a stellar cast and a serious subject, is a film that walks a fine line by releasing itself in November-it could either become a major Oscar contender, a film that expands its core audience of devoted cinephiles and politically-minded theatergoers, or could just stay within that niche audience.  Considering I literally caught this movie on the last night it was out (it only played in one theater in my area, a major metropolitan market for movies), and I nearly missed it as a result, I suspect it will stay a niche picture, one that will be a struggle to name-check even by February.  The question for today is-is that the fate this picture deserved?

(I'm not issuing a spoiler alert because you should've paid attention when this was happening, and if you didn't that's why things like this go unnoticed) The movie follows the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into torture tactics that took place in the Bush administration in the years following 9/11.  The film centers on Dan Jones (Driver), a handsome, smart, driven man who works for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Bening) on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and is investigating the "enhanced interrogation tactics" of the Bush administration.  Dan becomes a man driven by desire to uncover the truth and bring it to light, to the point where at times it feels like his lack of confidence in Feinstein to be able to get past both the Republicans and the Bush & Obama White Houses (both of whom do not want this to see the light of day in the film) might drive him to break the law.  In real life both administrations were critical of the findings of the report, calling them partisan and inaccurate.  The movie flashes back to the torture that was chronicled in the report, as well as Feinstein & Jones' struggle to have the report see the light of day, which eventually it does, just days before Feinstein loses her position as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The film is shocking even if you followed this report's release in 2014 and what had already been released about the behavior of the CIA in regard to torturing suspects, many of whom should not have warranted capture.  The film picks-and-chooses when it uses real-life figures like Feinstein or Jon Hamm's Denis McDonough, and when they fictionalize what are obviously real-life people for legal reasons (Maura Tierney is clearly meant to be playing Gina Haspel), but it's more-or-less accurate in what happened.  It's hard to watch, particularly for those Democrats who have turned a blind eye to the failings of the Obama administration (especially in the wake of the more egregious sins of the Trump administration), but it's fair to say that while the Obama administration stopped enhanced interrogation basically the moment they took office, people like McDonough and John Brennan warred publicly & privately with people like Feinstein, as well as other figures such as Mark Udall & Sheldon Whitehouse (both featured in this film), and the bravery that resulted in these few senators standing up to their own party in the White House to get this report into the public eye.

All of this sounds great, and if The Report simply serves as a reminder of how senators can hold their own party in the White House accountable until they do the right thing (HINT HINT) it'd be worth as many people seeing this movie as possible.  However, from a cinematic perspective this film isn't very good, even from a political nerd such as myself.  The torture sequences, and particularly the torturers being portrayed, fall flat and don't have enough connection to the rest of the story other than to have us look on in horror.  Driver finds a determination in the boy scout dealings of Dan Jones, but he offers little insight into this man, and I feel like it's a cop-out to say that someone as intelligent and driven as Jones wouldn't have more of a personality (or at least a sex life).  He's better than Jon Hamm, who seems to be playing the same version of a handsome, line-reading figure of authority in every movie of the past five years.  For all of the criticism of January Jones post-Mad Men, has Hamm done literally anything approaching how good he was as Don Draper, and why is it that Jones gets critically-maligned while he keeps getting chances after under-performing pretty every filmic role he's had (I know why-that was rhetorical)?

Bening is the best part of the movie.  While she doesn't try to imitate Feinstein's distinctive speaking cadences (Feinstein has been in public life the whole time I've followed politics, so I know her voice anywhere, and Bening isn't trying here), she gets her mannerisms down and I loved the thoughtfulness she brings to key scenes.  Feinstein is a senator noted for her caution, someone who frustrates both Democrats & Republicans, but is a serious politician pretty much everyone attributes integrity toward.  The scenes where she tells off McDonough (they give Bening two Oscar moments) are obviously a joy for fans of the actress, but she puts such care even into throwaway lines to Jones that it feels like Bening did her homework.  She's created a woman who has had her comments scrutinized for decades, to the point where she can't say anything without mentally checking how it will be used against her.  If the rest of the film had shown the same level of detail to their character, The Report would have been a worthwhile cinematic affair rather than just an honorable attempt to remind people of how Congress can do the right thing even when it's not politically convenient.