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Truth
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (10th March 2016). |
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The Film
 The time is late 2004 and polls suggest that a majority of Americans do not think that George W. Bush is deserving of reelection and that a John Kerry victory is likely. 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes (Blue Jasmine's Cate Blanchett) and CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather (The Sting's Robert Redford) have just broken the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture and abuse scandal. Mary gets an email from rogue colleague Mike Smith (American Ultra's Topher Grace) promising "tasty brisket" in the form of a lead linking the Bin Laden family to Bush's oil company Arbusto through a colleague in the Texas National Guard. Mary gets the okay for the story from show producers Josh Howard (Eat Pray Love's David Lyons), Mary Murphy (Natalie Saleeba), and Betsy West (Derailed's Rachael Blake) and assembles her crack team: Colonel Roger Charles (Pandorum's Dennis Quaid) who worked the Abu Ghraib story, journalism professor Lucy Scott (Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss), and Mike Smith as researcher. The lead does not pan out but Mary has resumed a story she was working on back in 2000 about the inconsistences in Bush's National Guard service record and the possibility that his father may have used his influence to keep his son from going to Vietnam; a story that, Mike is told by Roger, might have resulted in an Al Gore victory had Mary not been completely devastated by her mother's sudden death. While the records do show a period of inactivity, they need someone to go on the record. The still-living personnel who were above Bush in the National Guard either refuse to speak to them or insist that his military record is a non-issue despite the smear campaign being carried out on Kerry's military record. Out of the blue, they are contacted by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett (Road Games's Stacy Keach) who claims to have photocopies of interoffice memos from Bush's late CO Jerry Killian in the Guard that he saved as the originals were destroyed. With the story set to air in a matter of days since all other dates for the show are preempted until after the election, Mapes and her crew work day and night to verify the documents – employing four document examiners and a handwriting analyst – and to comment on them. Although Killian's former supervisor General Bobby Hodges believes the documents to be fake, he does concede that they appear to reflect Killian's mind-set at the time. Only two of the document examiners sign off on the verification with one of the others deferring to the former. The story airs and the documents are immediately dissected and claimed to be forgeries by bloggers while the other news networks run with the story, seeking out the other two document examiners who claim that they never signed off on the verification. Burkett, described as an anti-Bush internet rabble-rouser by detractors, is also pushed to reveal that his story about how he got the documents was not true, and his motivations are called into question (having requested that Mapes get him in contact with the Kerry campaign). Although Mapes dismisses the internet "wannabe analysts" for burying the lead and insists the documents were not the story's smoking gun, the network is eager to "inoculate" themselves and Mapes is vaulted into the spotlight where she is attacked by bloggers as "feminazi propagandist" and even her own father as a "radical feminist" who "went into journalism with an axe to grind." As she prepares to go before an internal review panel – conducted by Bush cronies – Mapes is advised that Rather's job and his reputation may not survive the scandal.  Based on Mary Mapes's memoir Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power, Truth is not quite All the President's Men-levels of stimulating. On the one hand, it acknowledges the sloppiness of the source vetting, research, and verification of Mapes' crack team and questions her thought processes (whether she was so willing to risk sloppiness because she believed the conclusion and took the veracity of the documents that supported it for granted), but it generally plays softball with its main characters, pointing out instead that the opposition attacked the veracity of the documents but never refuted Bush's failure to report for duty. While our inner cynic is certain that Bush's supporters would look for anything to attack, the viewer may find just as infuriating that Mapes and her team could leave themselves this exposed and so ill-prepared to defend themselves in anticipation of an attack from any conceivable angle. On the other hand, the film too easily reduces all of its antagonistic characters as either spineless functionaries in always "cover your ass" mode or smug villains whose agendas are anything but ambiguous (as typified by Dermot Mulroney's [The Grey] hissing turn) that one almost feels that its notable American supporting cast – among them Bruce Greenwood (The Sweet Hereafter), John Benjamin Hickey (The Bone Collector) as Mape's reporter husband Mark Wrolstad and the voice of Chris Mulkey (Whiplash) as National Guard commander Maurice Udell – is merely lining their resumes with a prestige project while the Australian actors – among them Andrew McFarlane (Little White Lies) as Mapes' lawyer and Noni Hazlehurst (Little Fish) as Burkett's wife – are honing their American accents. Blanchett gives her usual fine performance and is at her best conveying the character's incredulity and defiance, but Redford comes across as a character actor doing an impression rather than a star embodying a layered and complex role (possibly because Mapes sees herself as having left him vulnerable to attack by a station lobbying the Republican party and making a move towards infotainment). Truth sheds additional light on a journalistic (and what should have been a presidential) scandal and raises interesting questions about education versus entertainment in the news, but it unfortunately flows like awards bait concerning an issue that people do not know enough about, never did or no longer care about, or comes about too late to seem as though it can undo damage or effect meaningful change.
Video
Sony's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.40:1 widescreen encode is without any obvious flaws and as slick as one expects of their prestige titles. 
Audio
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is appropriately front-oriented for a dialogue-heavy film with crowd noises, rainfall, and other atmospheric sounds reaching the surrounds along with the score. A descriptive audio track is also provided in Dolby Digital 5.1. The optional English and English SDH subtitles keep up with the rapidly spoken dialogue and will be of help for those who want to look up some of the names of real life persons mentioned in passing. 
Extras
The audio commentary with writer/director James Vanderbilt and producers Brad Fischer & William Sherak finds the participants discussing the project's origins as Vanderbilt's movement from screenwriter to director, Mapes' source book and consulting with her on the script and production, structuring the story around the flashback device of relating the story to Mapes' lawyer as she consults him before the review panel, the cast and their real life counterparts, as well as the stylistic choices. The sober track suits the film far more than an anecdotal cast commentary, and is also more informative. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are a series of deleted scenes (12:44) which are mostly scene extensions, including a longer version of Heyward introducing Rather as well as a scene that makes Josh look even more sniveling. Also exclusive is the featurette "The Reason for Being" (11:32) in which Rather and Mapes reflect on the aftermath of the events and the important themes of the book and film in redefining truth and integrity in the media. "The Team" featurette (8:43) actually divides its time between the actors briefly discussing their characters and introducing the behind the scenes team of screenwriter-turned-director James Vanderbilt (Zodiac), and producers Andrew Spaulding (The Ward), Brad Fischer (Shutter Island), and Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) patting themselves on the shoulder.  Also included is a Q&A with Cate Blanchett, Elisabeth Moss, and Director/Writer James Vanderbilt (32:59) - moderated by Variety's Jenelle Riley - that is more fascinating than the commentary. The three reflecting on the news story and their surprise to discover all of the behind the scenes fallout through Mapes' novel (or rather the "juicy" chapter published by Vanity Fair). Vanderbilt discusses his fascination with journalism and the process of putting together a story, reading Mapes' book, and getting to know her personally. Blanchett discusses her slow process of reading scripts and researching roles, conceding that initially the subject did not motivate her until she started reading the screenplay. They also discuss Redford as Rather (Vanderbilt had him in mind, having written a script for a movie he was set to direct), the actor's naturalistic approach, and comparing the relationship between the real Mapes and Rather to Blanchett and Redford. The film's theatrical trailer (2:06) rounds out the extras.
Overall
Truth sheds additional light on a journalistic (and what should have been a presidential) scandal and raises interesting questions about education versus entertainment in the news, but it unfortunately flows like awards bait concerning an issue that people do not know enough about, never did or no longer care about, or comes about too late to seem as though it can undo damage or effect meaningful change. 
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