The Report (2019)
Directed by Scott Z. Burns
The story of Daniel Jones, lead investigator for the US Senate’s sweeping study into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was found to be brutal, immoral and ineffective. With the truth at stake, Jones battled tirelessly to make public what many in power sought to keep hidden.
6 connections found
View:
6 films that influenced The Report
What critics say influenced The Report
Even Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty receives a few side-eyed references that may have audiences questioning its status as one of the best films of the decade.
A rejoinder of sorts to Kathryn Bigelow’s superior “Zero Dark Thirty,” which was widely misinterpreted by some as condoning torture, “The Report” has clearly been conceived in the mold of pictures like “All the President’s Men,” “Zodiac” and “Spotlight,” all of which made gripping cinema out of the daily drudgery of investigative work.
There’s a brief moment late in The Report where a trailer for Zero Dark Thirty can be seen.
“Homeland,” “24” and “Zero Dark Thirty” are invoked as fictional advocates of the value of torture in the war on terror.
The Report is as dedicated to reminding everyone that narcs f-cking suck as Zero Dark Thirty is dedicated to selling torture as a permissible interrogation tactic.
After all, the investigation into the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" took so long to reach the public (2007-2014) The Report actually contains a scene of Jones railing against the inaccuracies of 2012's Zero Dark Thirty.
A rejoinder of sorts to Kathryn Bigelow’s superior “Zero Dark Thirty,” which was widely misinterpreted by some as condoning torture, “The Report” has clearly been conceived in the mold of pictures like “All the President’s Men,” “Zodiac” and “Spotlight,” all of which made gripping cinema out of the daily drudgery of investigative work.
Films like "Spotlight" and "All the President’s Men" have shown that investigating injustice can be translated into compelling filmmaking.
The Report, which premiered at the festival on Saturday, has drawn comparisons to Spotlight, the 2015 best-picture winner about diligent Boston Globe reporters uncovering decades of sexual abuse and covers-up within the Archdiocese of Boston.
He keeps his powder dry and waits until nearly the end to let the indignation really rip with a performance that somewhat recalls Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight , another film that pays tribute to the dull, dogged, due process of truth telling.
Many of the scenes feel reminiscent of Traffic or Spotlight , and blending the two vibes makes this one far from boring.
Baring a few questionable artistic choices where it uses a lot of time-hopping and yellow drenched flashbacks in a dizzying attempt to put its entire context into perspective, The Report carries the same energy that Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side possessed with the investigative power of Spotlight and All the President’s Men.
Written and directed by Scott Z. Burns (Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum), The Report belongs to the rich tradition of Beltway procedurals, stretching from 1976’s All the President’s Men to 2017’s The Post—real-life thrillers set in wonky, earnest Washington, a city that on film consists entirely of marble monuments, brutalist office buildings, parking garages, and the odd Georgetown mansion.
Matthew Rhys, who played a spy in The Americans and Daniel Ellsberg in The Post , is also well-cast as a New York Times national security reporter.
Of course, the seminal 1976 Watergate thriller has been a popular touchstone in recent years, influencing everything from the Oscar-winning Spotlight to Steven Spielberg‘s less effective The Post .
Also enjoyable are juicy bit roles for Ted Levine as scuzzy CIA Director John Brennan, a smooth Corey Stoll as an unaffordable attorney and — in the film’s cleverest bit of meta-casting — Matthew Rhys, who played Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg in Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” and pops up here as a New York Times reporter trying to talk Jones into slipping him the classified document.
Just as Steven Spielberg’s The Post (2017) was a particularly timely reminder two years ago about the importance of the news media in fact-checking and holding the government accountable during a time when screeches of “Fake news!” had become a myopic (and dangerous) defense against news reporting, Scott Z. Burns’s The Report is a particularly timely reminder about the importance of the system of inter-governmental checks and balances within a constitutional democracy during a time when that system seems more endangered than ever.
Scott Z. Burns takes a cue from Alan J. Pakula's "All the President's Men" and Steven Spielberg's "The Post" with his engrossing thriller, "The Report," in keeping the narrative focused on the search for truth and not letting it get muddied by character backstory deviations.
If Scott Z. Burns' script for Steven Soderbergh's recent Netflix Original, The Laundromat, was his attempt to do The Big Short, then his screenplay for The Report (which Burns also directed and Soderbergh produced) is very much his answer to Spotlight.
It's a departure from the propulsive action thrills of Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty — a film with a very different perspective on U.S. torture methods that Burns' movie directly calls out in one sequence — and of the winking, comedic metaphors of Adam McKay's Vice and The Big Short .
Luckily, the occasionally cold nature of the proceedings is compensated by how Burns feels far more comfortable as a writer doing his own take on a 1970’s political thriller than he did doing The Big Short -lite on The Laundromat .
I’m reminded of “The Big Short,” which managed to weave a complex tale with lots of moving parts into a coherent, impactful narrative.
Advertisement
Mock burials, use of insects, power drills to heads, arms pulled out of sockets: it’s the stuff of snuff movies, real-life versions of shilling shockers such as Hostel and The Human Centipede .
Burns makes his directorial debut with The Report after a string of notable screenwriting credits, including the Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat , Contagion, Side Effects, and The Informant!
Burns is best known for his screenplays for The Informant!, Contagion and Side Effects, all directed by Steven Soderbergh, one of The Report's producers.
Burns specializes in docudrama-like narratives and is best known for having written numerous screenplays for Steven Soderbergh, including The Informant!, Side Effects, and The Laundromat (which is currently streaming on Netflix).
It should come as no surprise that the writer of Side Effects and Contagion, Scott Z. Burns, is capable of directing a whip-smart drama like The Report.
Writer and sophomore director Scott Z. Burns (writer of Side Effects, Contagion) capitalizes on a tight screenplay that is direct, void of distraction, clear, and succinct.
Frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burns wrote and directed The Report, and although the two of them have partnered on some of Soderbergh’s more experimental stuff ( The Informant! , Contagion , Side Effects , the truly abysmal The Laundromat ), Burns’s solo effort is most in line with Erin Brockovich , a movie that came out nearly a decade before Burns and Soderbergh began working together.