Review of Nothing But the Truth (2008) by Jesse O — 10 Mar 2011

I thought this was a good movie, all in all. But, as with murder mysteries, I just can't get into these political thrillers (and other thriller sub-genres) as much as I'd like. The only two I can recall off the top of my head that I got into are The Insider (which was a fantastic movie) and State of Play.

The thing that, I feel, got me into The Insider was because it was something that ACTUALLY happened and not something that was concocted from scratch. And just the story is told, it's a movie that completely commands your attention and you cannot remove your eyes from it.

This movie, on the other hand, is inspired by a real event of a New York Times journalist ousting a woman suspected of being a CIA agent (there's a movie based off this woman called Fair Game starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn).

The rest of this movie is made up from scratch. And I don't know if that was the problem or if the story just simply didn't grab me that much. Probably a mix of both. But still, this was a good movie with some excellent performances.

Kate Beckinsale is pretty great (and beautiful...but that goes without saying). The rest of the cast is pretty great too. The thing with this movie is, it feels like I've seen this movie a million times before.

It doesn't mean I have, it just FEELS like it. The story is good and all, but the pacing is kind of the shits. It feel like a 3 hour movie. Being that it was free and all on Starz On Demand, I really can't complain too much.

It's a good movie, but it never really seems to reach that next level.