Robert Redford starring in a film about a reporter trying to track down whether or not the President of the United States has illegal activity (now or in the past) makes for some easy parallels. This is true even when Redford is a reporter—not the reporter—at the center of the tale, and it is also exactly what one finds with James Vanderbilt's directorial debut, Truth.
Rather than Redford's Dan Rather being at the center of Truth, it is Cate Blanchett's Mary Mapes. As the film is based on Mapes' book about the 60 Minutes report on George W. Bush's National Guard activity, this makes complete sense. Redford's Rather doesn't come off badly, but he does come off as a hard-drinking news anchor who is brought in at the last minute to be the on-camera guy as opposed to doing the legwork himself. Mapes bounces thoughts off of Rather and has some discussions with him about the story, but he is depicted more as an institution who may be past his prime and who isn't in control of either the story he's telling nor the firestorm it causes.
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Rather than Redford's Dan Rather being at the center of Truth, it is Cate Blanchett's Mary Mapes. As the film is based on Mapes' book about the 60 Minutes report on George W. Bush's National Guard activity, this makes complete sense. Redford's Rather doesn't come off badly, but he does come off as a hard-drinking news anchor who is brought in at the last minute to be the on-camera guy as opposed to doing the legwork himself. Mapes bounces thoughts off of Rather and has some discussions with him about the story, but he is depicted more as an institution who may be past his prime and who isn't in control of either the story he's telling nor the firestorm it causes.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...