Daniel J Jones (Adam Driver) is on the staff of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening), charged with conducting an investigation into the CIA's secret detention and torture program, a real method created after 9/11 and used between 2002 and 2006. With the methodology of a scholar and the determination of an investigative journalist, Jones discovers a network of hidden truths and a mechanism of intrigue with which the CIA tried to destroy evidence, subvert the laws and hide a brutal truth to American people.
All this is very well described in The Report, a compelling political thriller based on the real facts that brought to light one of the most shameful pages of contemporary US history. From a windowless room in a basement, aided by a handful of collaborators – some of whom abandoned along the way – the idealist Daniel J. Jones collects information, reveals coverings and connivance, completing in 2014 what is known as The Torture Report, result of an exhaustive and in-depth investigation investigation.
525 pages (the original available here) extracted from over 6,700 produced by Jones (still top secret) on the controversial program of “enhanced interrogation techniques". Produced by Steven Soderbergh, The report it has a solid script and a dry and rigorous style of direction, which immediately recalls the narrative rhythms and the tension of All the President's Men (Alan J.Pakula, 1982) and the most recent Spotlight and The Post.
The genesis of The Report begins in 2007, with an article by journalist Katherine Eban on Vanity Fair from the explanatory title Rohrshack and Awe which describes the torture methods developed by two psychologists – James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen – and used by the CIA after 11 September.
The director Scott Z. Burns is a screenwriter and collaborator of Steven Soderbergh: from his pen came out, among others, The Informant !, Contagion, Side Effects and The Laundromat, a film in which although from different angles, the theme of the truth obscured, hidden, manipulated, diversified.
But reading the article, Burns realized that reality here exceeded fantasy. Two psychologists develop a program without any scientific assumption, which is taken by the CIA and blindly applied to the interrogations of suspected terrorists arrested or captured after 9/11. They are the techniques of "enhanced interrogation": a nice round of words to avoid the term "torture". A collaboration paid 80 million dollars, but without obtaining any significant results. Much of the information extracted with sleep deprivation, the waterboarding (technique that causes the victim to choke through water poured into the nose and mouth) hypothermia and other forms of physical and psychological torture, were already in the possession of the American government, many turned out to be false or misleading, confessions made by prisoners for to make torture stop.
Even with some differences – mainly due to part of the secreted material or to protagonists who cannot be named – The Report try to be as faithful as possible to the real facts by also looking for a dry and essential narrative style, to allow the viewer to immerse themselves in the research, as happens to the protagonist.
The Report is, above all, the film by Adam Driver, consecrated by this interpretation among the greats of contemporary Hollywood, capable of constructing a character with all the possible nuances of those who discover a series of illegal and morally deplorable acts: anger, dismay, disappointment, but also determination and constancy. His Daniel J. Jones (Driver met Jones several times during the production) discovers brutal and ineffective choices hidden from the government to the people and decides to let them be known to the world: he tells a story, but while the story is told Jones changes and Driver knows interpret the evolution.
Daniel J. Jones is a contemporary hero, but without the stereotypes of the hero. A man at the service of the American people, and not of the Government when this performs reprehensible acts.
Movies like The Report they also help not to forget. And perhaps to give more space to hope.
The Report
Country: U.S.A.
Year: 2019
Duration: 118 '
Directed by: Scott Z. Burns
Cast: Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Corey Stoll, Linda Powell, John Rothman, Victor Slezak
Production: Topic Studios, Margin of Error, Unbranded Pictures, Vice Media
Release date: November 18 to 20 (cinema) from November 27 Amazon Prime Video
Source link
https://www.nonsolocinema.com/the-report-di-scott-z-burns.html
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