The Post Review by Chris Hembury

The Post ***

In the era of the Nixon Presidency The Washington Post Newspaper has a choice to publish papers indicating the government has been misleading the public over the Vietnam War with the punishment potentially being prison and bankruptcy.

Meryl Streep plays owner of the family newspaper opposite Tom Hank’s no non sense editor in the pursuit of the truth and cost it could have on them both.

Such a important interesting story is bogged down by a lengthy screen time due to clunky slow narrative from the script that unfortunately dose not use it’s time entertainingly enough to engage the audience at all times.

The first act contains many elements that no matter how interesting aren’t that essential in the moving forward at any exciting pace.

The film directed by the master Steven Spielberg suffers from a lack of excitement from someone so achieved with the first hour made of countless dolly pan shots and simplistic coverage. Later on some more interesting shots in the crucial dialogue scenes get nice subtle direction and impressive mood setting angles which helps the emotion and flow of the film. Many shots you could have envisaged Hitchcock using in many of his closed intimate scenes back in the day.

Streep and Hanks hand in engaging performances but never have the goods in the script to deliver stand out or memorable roles.

The film in itself is extremely important in reminding us all of the importance of the free press in era of time that looks in many ways to have come full circle in Washington in terms of suppression of the media.

A nice touch ending also indicates the irony of the film’s message that is imprinted in history.