“The (Torture) Report”: indeed, another “Do Ask, Do Tell” book (?)
Is “The Report” (the title of a political drama film written and directed by Scott Z Burns) really “The (Torture) Report”? It’s about 7000 pages, about seven times the combined length of my three “Do Ask Do Tell” books, and curiously, from the way it was written, seems to be a document in the same vein. My redemption?
The drama covers the time from 2003-2015 when Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) goes to work for Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA, Annette Benning) to write a separate report examining possible abuses or prisoners by the Central Intelligence Agency and possibly United States Army in the years following 9/11, particularly prisoners taken in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The film provides a flashback of all the events that led to 9/11 and immediately followed (the screen in sepia tones) and shows interrogation and waterboarding scenes of prisoners such as KSM. The tactics are quite insulting and even involving shaving. In the end prisoners often make up answers that turn out to be wrong or misleading.
Daniel, as played by Driver, is quite charismatic and systematic. His personality seems like a combination of Trey Yingst (a Fox foreign correspondent now) and John Fish (a Harvard undergraduate Youtuber now on a gap year to work). He’s well dressed. He’s methodical. He has great integrity. He heads up a team working in a windowless basement going through CIA documents, without cooperation from the agency. Feinstein seems a bit underspoken and dimunitive in the way Benning plays her.
In the end, Daniel feels like a book author, a celebrity, and there is a lot of wrangling over releasing the report to the Congress and possibly eventually the press.
There is a leak, and at one point Daniel is falsely accused of hacking (done mysteriously) and threatened with prosecution. The New York Times helps him get out of it without a lawyer (who advises him to contact the press).
The film was distributed by Amazon Studios and will soon be on video. I saw it at a Bow Tie Cinema and the film did not seem to have stereo in the theater. The theater did not show previews, but the show (late Nov. 20) was about 10 minutes late starting with some technical problem.
Was the film intentionally released to coincide with the impeachment hearings and the fallout from the whistleblower controversy (the issue of protecting whistleblowers is mentioned in the movie)?
The film could be compared to “Rendition” (2007, New Line, Gavin Hood, where Jake Gyllenhaal plays a kindly CIA agent who cares about this stuff). Also compare to “Official Secrets” (Sept. 25, 2019 here).
I have to note that Diane Feinstein excoriated Rick Santorum (R-PA) on the Senate floor on CSpan in 2004 in being more concerned about gay marriage than passing a terrorism bill.
Name: “The Report”
Director, writer: Scott Z. Burns
Released: 2019
Format: 2.35:1
When and how viewed: Bow Tie, Reston VA, 2019/11/20 late, I was the only person in the audience
Length: 118
Rating: R
Companies: Amazon Studios
Link: National Review
Stars: ****
(Posted: Thursday, November 21, 2019 at 10:30 AM EST)