Review of The Post (2017) by Greg T — 14 Jan 2018

I wanted to love this movie - in the end I just liked it. The script is often pedestrian and it's cliche's run deep - even in the way it's shot. It was as if Spielberg pulled out his, "here's how to shoot a Spielberg film," handbook - from the unnecessary and ineffective Michael Bay-esque, "hero shots," to the sleek moving shots that look like every other Spielberg film.

It lacked the grit it seemed to want, so desperately to convince us it had and it screams for tension to move it along, but never creates. This is a huge opportunity lost. It seems that Spielberg has come to lean on his all-star casts to carry his clunky films and in this case Streep's role seems more "one note" than nuanced as you feel her working hard to give the script what it lacks.

Hanks dusts off several past roles to create a solid, if dull, performance and even the brilliant character actors - Letts, Coon, Whitfield, Cross are saddles with hackneyed words in a film that should have made us feel it's ideas were huge, not only for their time, but for all time.