Truth (2015)

Really Surprised!

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I like the performances in this film. Nice to see Redford doing a Dan Rather imitation. Cate Blanchett is superb as Mary Mapes whose book and real life experience is brought into the fore front here. Stacey Keach and other support cast is excellent too.The problem here is that despite the Watergate type atmosphere like "All The Presidents Men" which this imitates, there is some major screaming that has to be done and I am doing it here. Dan Rather had to step down as CBS anchor after this George W. Bush National Guard story aired. It is replayed in this film.The story is Mary Mapes digging out the facts about the story. The failure of Journalism here is shown in it's most graphic detail. "Why is the story important?" It is only important because there was an election going on. Even if all the facts were proven (and they weren't), there is no crime. Nixon tried to destroy the two party system. Bush might have gone AWOL. Fact not pointed out in the film, Dan Rather actually did go AWOL walking off the CBS News set when he threw a tantrum.The film actually insults Rather. It points out vividly that he went to air without any verification of the story just trusting Mary Mapes word. I can hear Walter Cronkrite turning over in his grave on this. Rather does not look good on this, and CBS News does not look good either. It is an important film because it does point out what CBS News did recently to Scott Pelley. One night on CBS Evening News, Scott was interviewing one of the top people on the collusion of Russia in the Trump Election. Everything went off well and good until Scott actually had the guts to ask him if he really "had any real evidence of the collusion?" The guy got angry, would not answer because he could not answer the question (he obviously had no proof) that Scott had gone off script with. Within a week CBS had demoted Scott off the Evening News anchor job. This is proof of the establishment that is illustrated in Mary's story and is actually more than a little scary.Rather was a field reporter during JFK's killing and in Dallas. He fed Walter live reports on November 22, 1963. Among those initial reports were hints of a vast Right Wing conspiracy being involved killing JFK. When it came out that Oswald visited/ defected to the USSR, lived there, found a bride there, came back here and then supported the "Fair Play For Cuba Comittee", it is much more logical that Oswald was a "Left Wing Conspirator". One of the great ironies of history as it is written is that a Left Winger really shot JFK, Case Closed.Now, getting back to "Truth", the problem here is just that. The Truth here gets murdered for no good reason. It keeps happening now, because the main stream media is too busy manipulating public opinion through rigged polls which have even less facts than this Guard story, and reporting them as news stories. The real truth is that when a main stream media uses the same sources of polls for news stories as Rush Limbaugh (Pew Research), Houston, Journalism has a real problem. This film wastes a lot of good performances by trying to make a certain type of Journalism look good. What the film really does (I wonder if this is the point of Mapes Book) is make Journalism look very bad. Case Closed

This is a very good film. The cinematography, writing, acting, pacing, and most everything else just works. Particularly satisfying is Redford's portrayal of Rather, while not an impression or imitation, treats the man with the respect which is his due. Based on Ms. Mapes's book covering the "Rathergate" scandal, it tends to cover both sides of the issue - was the story politically motivated? The film says "No!" but the words say "Yes!" It's left up to the viewer to decide - which is a welcome and refreshing movie experience in the days of Michael Moore leftist propaganda.The problem I have with the story is the constant assertion that the CBS 60-Minutes news team did no thing other than pursue the truth. This is not the case by the film's own revelations. The team starts off with a clue that George W. Bush was AWOL during his "privileged" tour in the Texas Air National Guard, and that he was "released early" so he could attend Harvard. At times it reads like Stone's JFK with conspiracy theories flying about and fingers pointing at enlarged documents on the wall, building this "solid" case that Bush was deliberately put out of harms way because of who he is while others died in Vietnam. While the film does touch on John Kerry's "purple heart" debacle - it fails to mention stronger issues such as Bill Clinton being the beneficiary of friends in high places regarding Vietnam. The 60-Minutes crew has just one problem - they can't find any collaborating evidence to support their theory. They call everyone they can find and it isn't that no one is willing to talk about it, but they are constantly told there is no story here and getting hung up on. "No stings were pulled" they are constantly told. Suspecting that everyone is afraid of Bush, and rather than "following the facts to the truth," they continue to dig, and end up finding Bill Burkett, who has copies of two memos that seem to suggest that Bush was AWOL from the Air National Guard. They don't say that, but it's what Mapes WANTS to believe, and so they go with it. AWOL stands for "Away Without Leave" which means a soldier who has orders to be at a post at a certain time was not - in fact - there at that time and in violation of those orders. A soldier is not AWOL if he is away WITH permission - something the film glosses over. That is, we never know if Bush has permission or not - just that he was not on base to be evaluated - according to the memos.They try to have the documents authenticated, and two of the four experts refuse to do it because they are not originals. Mapes pushes forward, backed by the belief that even if the memos themselves are fakes, the information on them is at least true, and that's good enough. They put the story together, and because 60-Minutes is being pre-emptied by - shudder, a Billy Graham crusade - they decide to push the story out in four days rather than - well - actually baking the story more before rushing it to air. According to the film, they were editing footage seconds before air time. But, it would seem, it was more important to get "the truth" out about Bush in the election year sooner than later, then say, do their jobs.Calamity ensues after the airing, with everyone pointing out the very obvious proportional fonts used in the memos, the fact that they were copies of copies, the New Times Roman Font, and a silly stunt about the super- scripted "th" which indicate that the memos were produced using Microsoft Word. They actually dig through boxes of documents looking for a super-scripted "th" to "prove" that it was possible in 1972 to have a typewriter with such a feature. Tap-dancing and straw- grasping at its most desperate.The film ends with an inquest, where Mapes defends the memos insisting that they must be real because of the intimate knowledge a forger would have to possess in order to create them, but then make the ridiculous mistake of creating them using Microsoft Word. That alone screams that the documents should not have been trusted, but Mapes did anyway because - well - you can't un-ring a bell and if it gets Kerry elected then it's all in being on the Right Side of History. Yet, it still doesn't excuse why the memo format wasn't questioned until it was pointed out to them. The punch line is that Mapes needed them to be true so they could smear Bush. Right or wrong, true or false, the story was run to smear Bush, which is NOT pursuance of the truth even if it should end up being the truth.The film never takes a solid position on Bush, and I think that's the point. What is the truth here? It's left up to the viewer.

Not all of it that is, but you still had some people with integrity. People who may get disillusioned by what hardships they have to face for reporting the truth. And others who try to detract from the actual points that are being made. Of course you can see this as another piece/attack on President Bush. But that would be narrow minded, because while he is the main target of the story (and you could say that there are a lot of analogies to the soon to be POTUS), the heart of it is more than that.And having these actors in it portraying actual people is something that helps and elevates the movie. It's tough to not like them, for their passion, for their love of their job. And it's hard not to feel their pain and or joy depending on how successful they are or the obstacles they have to face. A very engaging movie, that takes you in ... about something at least I wasn't fully aware of

It's 2004. Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) is a producer for CBS's 60 Minutes and a longtime contributor to legendary anchor Dan Rather (Robert Redford). She is working on a story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard. She recruits Mike Smith (Topher Grace), Lucy Scott (Elisabeth Moss), and Colonel Roger Charles (Dennis Quaid) to work on the story. Bill Burkett (Stacy Keach) brings them collaborating memos. They are pushed to rush the story to air and almost immediately after the airing, bloggers are claiming that the memos are fake.It's an important moment in journalism and the world. It certainly tells the story more in-depth than I knew during that time. Honestly, all I remember from the incident are the fake documents. It's an even more compelling story than that. In the end, it doesn't answer the glaring question in the center of storm. It needs to settle the authenticity of the memos. Mary Mapes mentions looking for the typewriter. The movie needs to find the typewriter(s) that could have made the document to wrap up the narrative. The acting is superb led by Cate Blanchett. The story is detailed and understandable. It's a brave new world.