M, 120 minutes
4 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
The
missing middle word in the title of this strenuous and thoughtful film is
torture. The inconvenient truth of it redacted, just like the videotape records
of CIA ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ destroyed in the years after
September 11.
No, not a
spoiler. Just letting you know about the really unsavoury backstory to this
7,000 page report into CIA activities.
Based on
real events post 9/11
Based on
real people and real events, The Report is about how researchers working
for the Senate Intelligence Committee compiled an official report inhouse into
the methods used by the government’s intelligence agency while interrogating
terrorists and terror suspects detained after 9/11.
A lot of
young Americans stepped up to join the defence forces or otherwise help after
that national catastrophe, including a young graduate student, Daniel Jones
(Adam Driver), who switched his studies to security overnight.
the real Dan Jones has set up an
organisation to promote transparency and good governance internationally
As a
young everyman who wanted to help protect the homeland, Driver is an inspired
choice. We already had him pegged as an engaging, versatile and intelligent
actor, and though we get to see little other dimension to his personality
outside of work, he is always interesting to watch.
 |
| Adam Driver as Dan Jones |
Incidentally,
the real Dan Jones has left the public service and set up an organisation to
promote transparency and good governance around the world.
As a
Senate staffer, Jones led the team investigating the CIA use of torture in the
wake of 9/11. It may well have been the last thing a patriotically inclined
young citizen sought, but he was lucky to be under the guidance of Senator
Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening), an admirable, thoughtful and supportive
boss. After a long a distinguished career, the real Feinstein is the oldest
serving member of the US Senate.
CIA
videotape records had been disappeared
The tapes
of interrogations had been disappeared or destroyed, but, incredibly, the
written records still existed, and it was these that Jones and his tiny team
trawled through for years to come up with the facts. It was no easy job. They
had to face bureaucrats disinclined to help, or simply resistant, and work in
the windowless bowels of some departmental basement.
When has torture ever worked? Did it
ever work in Vietnam or South America?
What they
found on the page is translated to scenes that are mercifully short. Feinstein
and the team found themselves asking if torture ever worked. Did it ever work
in Vietnam or South America? The film leaves you in no doubt, and has a dig
along the way at Zero Dark Thirty for concluding that it had led to Bin
Laden.
If
waterboarding works, then why was it necessary for a prisoner to undergo it 183
times, Feinstein asks. A reasonable question, no one had thought to ask it of
the two contract psychologists who were freelancing its use. This notorious
method and mock burials and the rest has become ‘a stain on the values and
history’ of the US in the years since.
The
Report is
written and directed by Scott Z. Burns, whose writing credits include The
Bourne Ultimatum, Side Effects and will soon include the new Bond
film, No Time To Die.
Despite
the welcome presence of Bening, there is nothing glamourous to this shadowy
world of intelligence gathering. With its chilly palette and serious, weighty
tone, The Report is in the tradition of work in the wake of the
Watergate scandal, like All the President’s Men, and after the release
of the Pentagon Papers (on US involvement in Vietnam), like The Post.
Typically, it’s mostly chilly interiors and the forbidding facades of
impenetrable Washington government buildings in the frame.
A stain
on American history and values
When the
report is released, other senators, including the late John McCain, (famously a
former long-term prisoner of the North Vietnamese) lend their support to it and
condemn the use of torture, and its stain on American values and international
standing. The noticeably warmer glow in the frame at this point, is
unfortunately undercut by some final revelations.
This is
smart stuff, wordy and engrossing - and non-partisan - with a great message for
governments to own their mistakes. It can feel like sitting on a jury,
listening to the arguments back and forth, but in the final analysis, The
Report is in no doubt about the position it takes.
