Review of The Post (2017) by James R — 11 Jan 2018

A solid Steven Spielberg film about the true events surrounding the leak of White House documents that proved the U.S. knew they could never win the war in Vietnam and had secretly been funding rigged elections in the Vietnam region for decades.

The film takes place in 1971 and centers around two days where breaking news happened about the documents I previously mentioned. The New York Times first breaks the news, but the government then came in and put a stop to them.

The same documents come to the Washington Post and it's up to the owner Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) to publish the documents at the behest of her lead editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks). Bradlee believes its the right thing to do even if they do get into trouble and even possible imprisoned.

The film is a bit of a slow burn, but its a good political thriller. I especially enjoyed Tom Hanks in this one. All of his scenes are definitely the more interesting. Streep is a bit of different character this time around.

I'm use to always seeing her in very powerful roles, but Kay Graham is kind of a timid woman here. She struggles to get her voice heard and although she does make a big decision here on publishing the papers I didn't feel like her payoff was that great here.

She was definitely the weakest part of this film for me, but she still had moments of brilliance dashed into here especially her ending sequence. The movie is pretty cut and straight not deviating too much from the actual story.

The supporting cast is really good here too especially Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian the journalist who gets the majority of the documents. Overall, solid film and I recommend any political thriller fans to give it a look.