Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Movie review: The Report

© Amazon Studios
I don’t care for political movies, but I liked The Report
by Justin Moore

I’m not one for political movies. I mostly ignore politics, which is hard nowadays since it is all over social media. Whenever there is a new political movie, I often skip it, but I wanted to check out The Report solely because of Adam Driver. Driver has three films coming out in the span of a month. His two films in December (Marriage Story and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) are a perfect way to cap off the year.

Adam Driver stars as Daniel Jones, an FBI agent who is tasked with investigating the CIA’s use of torture on suspected terrorists. After the 9/11 attacks, the CIA adopted new interrogation techniques. With not paying too much attention to politics, I was not too familiar with this report and investigation, so I went into the movie with an open mind.

The movie presented the argument of why the report needed to be made and why it should be destroyed. Throughout the film, many people were trying to convince Daniel Jones that his report should be destroyed since the CIA was trying to stop future attacks by interrogating suspected terrorists. On Daniel Jones side, he believes that no human should be interrogating people the way the CIA was. By having both arguments present, it makes the report more urgent and the film more gripping.

Adam Driver has shown throughout the years that he is a talented actor. He can balance comedic and dramatic roles. He is very believable in his role and truly is invested in his character. The report Jones is writing up is a very long document, which requires hours and hours of hard work, and Driver easily convinces the audience that Jones was motivated to finish the report.

I was surprised with the large cast that is in this movie. The cast includes Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Corey Stoll, Michael C. Hall, and Maura Tierney. Everyone has an important role in the film, big or small, and makes the report feel important all the way till the last few minutes when Senator John McCain read the report.

Scott Z. Burns hasn’t directed a movie since 2006 but has spent most of career writing films that are directed by Steven Soderbergh, who also serves as the producer for The Report. He keeps the movie feeling quick and rarely slows down. As someone who isn’t into politics, I appreciated the quick pace for the film since I always remained interested.

I was surprised with how much I liked The Report. If I scrolled through my favorite films of recent years, there wouldn’t be a political thriller in there. The Report won’t crack my top ten of the year, but I am glad I sat down and watched it. And hey, I learned things about the CIA and FBI!

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