The Post

2017 historical drama

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The Washington Post tries to decide what to do with a bunch of top-secret files that prove the government had lied to the people about the Vietnam War.

This is almost exactly what you'd expect it to be, but despite this having star power, being directed by Spielberg, and being relevant to the current administration and their efforts to undermine the freedom of the press, that's not actually a good thing. The movie plays things very, very safe, and the paint-by-numbers approach spells things out for the audience as if nobody involved with The Post wanted the audience to figure anything out for themselves or come to their own conclusions.

This is one of those movies that is so overwritten. You get the sense that screenwriters Liz Hannah and Josh Singer wanted to out-Sorkin Aaron Sorkin, stopping after each line of dialogue and saying, "Now THAT is a well-written line!" and then vigorously patting themselves on the back. What makes it worse is that both Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks really squeeze the life out of these lines, each delivery itself seemingly trying to win its own award. I'm not sure if the acting is actually good or not, but what I do know is that it was impossible for me to watch this and see it as anything but acting. The lines these two spat at each other and the others felt like lead blocks being squeezed out of a sponge, and although individual moments might have seemed almost meaningful, almost nothing at all sticks. It's got the stink of Hollywood all over it, a glaze that likely makes it much more thrilling than how any of this actually went down, but it winds up being a little boring.

The context of our world of fake news and attacks on the 1st Amendment by a guy who 35% of the country still inexplicably supports makes this movie relevant. However, it's a movie that knows how relevant it is. It's self-important and not nearly as edgy as it probably thinks it is, like the guy who never shuts up at a meeting showing up one day in a leather jacket that he can't stop talking about. A lot of the time, a line would be delivered or a character would make a reference, and I could have sworn that everybody on screen turned toward the audience in the theater, breaking the fourth wall in order to wink ostentatiously and say, "You get what we're doing here, right? Does any of this seem familiar to you guys?"

It was nice to see Bob Odenkirk and David Cross together again, like a Mr. Show reunion. It wasn't nearly as funny though.

By far, my favorite part of this movie was watching the papers being printed. That was some cool machinery.

I reconsidered my original rating and bumped this up a point, really for no reason.