By: G Wayne
Copyright © 10/01/07
The Post, documents the challenges of Katherine Graham played by Meryl Streep, the first
female newspaper publisher, as she struggles with whether or not to make a brave stand
for freedom of speech and print the Pentagon Papers. It is interesting that the movie opens
with these top-secret documents (or is it a dossier) being stolen from the United States
Government. The movie seems to be stating that stealing from the government is
vindicated if the benevolent news industry is providing us with information they think we
need to know.
So, Tom Hanks as Forest Gump triggered the Watergate scandal, and then as the editor of the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, he gets to write about it. That guy gets his fingers into everything. Ben Bradlee writing about Watergate is only inferred at the end of the movie and I am proud to possess the intestinal fortitude to have stayed that long.
It would seem that acting in a Steven Spielberg flick is a step up for Bob Odenkirk of Better Call Saul fame, a Netflix series. But in this movie, it is more like a step down. Instead of playing the emotive Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill, he becomes the more "straightforward" Post reporter Ben Bagdikian. The word straightforward is code for flat and uninteresting. In Odenkirk's defense, he did a great job, there was just not much for him to work with.
While watching The Post, the words "When is something going to happen?" cycled through my brain, that and "Why was this movie even made?" I guess after the mainstream news media has lately taken such a shellacking for fake news, it sorely needs to rebuild its "knight in shining armor" image. I say I guess, because this movie didn't do it.
So, Tom Hanks as Forest Gump triggered the Watergate scandal, and then as the editor of the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, he gets to write about it. That guy gets his fingers into everything. Ben Bradlee writing about Watergate is only inferred at the end of the movie and I am proud to possess the intestinal fortitude to have stayed that long.
It would seem that acting in a Steven Spielberg flick is a step up for Bob Odenkirk of Better Call Saul fame, a Netflix series. But in this movie, it is more like a step down. Instead of playing the emotive Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill, he becomes the more "straightforward" Post reporter Ben Bagdikian. The word straightforward is code for flat and uninteresting. In Odenkirk's defense, he did a great job, there was just not much for him to work with.
While watching The Post, the words "When is something going to happen?" cycled through my brain, that and "Why was this movie even made?" I guess after the mainstream news media has lately taken such a shellacking for fake news, it sorely needs to rebuild its "knight in shining armor" image. I say I guess, because this movie didn't do it.
G Looks at the Movies