{"id":19516,"date":"2019-11-18T12:38:48","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T20:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=19516"},"modified":"2019-11-18T12:38:48","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T20:38:48","slug":"the-report-is-timely-and-distressing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=19516","title":{"rendered":"THE REPORT is Timely and Distressing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/24_0009_B-merged.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14439\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Strange and sometimes sinister activities can go on behind\nclosed doors, but none are likely to be quite as shocking and horrifying as\nthose depicted in <em>The Report<\/em>, a true story of a senate staffer\u2019s\ninvestigation into the CIA\u2019s employment of \u201cenhanced interrogation tactics\u201d\nused on suspects for years after the September 11<sup>th<\/sup> attacks.\nWriter\/director Scott Z. Burns (who penned <em>Contagion<\/em> and <em>Side Effects<\/em>)\ntreats a small investigation behind closed doors with a palpable sense of\nurgency and even danger, resulting in a very tense and unsettling picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Report-driver-taking-seated-fixed-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19518\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following the 9\/11 terrorist attack, Daniel Jones (Adam\nDriver) is eager to move from Harvard into the CIA and help the government\nfight the war on terror but finds himself on a different path, eventually\nworking for the FBI. When he\u2019s assigned a new role in helping Senator Dianne\nFeinstein (Annette Bening) investigate the CIA following word of vanished tapes\ndisplaying horrific torture techniques, Jones accepts the position, promising to\ndeliver an impartial fact-finding report. Despite meeting with subtle but\nimmediate resistance from the CIA, Jones and his team slowly begin uncovering\ninformation and piecing together staggering details. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Report-benning-cu-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19519\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a movie that essentially consists of Jones conducting interviews\nwith informants along with reenactments of the spoken accounts given to him. This\nmaterial could have been little more than a hard-to-watch series of encounters\nbetween talking heads, but instead the film is eye-opening and takes great care\nto show what the CIA were doing in graphic detail. Viewers witness psychologically\nand physically demeaning torture methods. Jones quickly discovers that despite\nstudies attesting that the enhanced techniques were ineffective at drawing out\ninformation, the participants engaged in the practices secretly and continued\nusing them over several years, tormenting 119 suspects (about a quarter of whom\nwere found to be innocent of any charges), and in one instance waterboarding a\nsuspect 180 times while imprisoned. These moments are harrowing to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the trail leads up the chain of command and reveals that\nmany persons within the CIA and major political figures were behind these\nactions and covering their tracks, it isn\u2019t long before Jones himself becomes a\ntarget. In fact, things even become grim for the lead when CIA officials\nthreaten to take legal action and potentially put him in prison if his findings\nare made public. All of this adds even more immediate tension to the\nproceedings and the safety of the lead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Report-driver-redacted-page-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19520\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Driver does well at finding a way to make his role relatable,\ndespite the man being a workaholic and the script paying almost no attention to\nhis private life (although to be frank, he doesn\u2019t appear to have one). Instead,\nthe movie revolves entirely around his work, and Jones\u2019 unrelenting approach\nbrings into focus the man\u2019s obsession the case, his growing frustration at\ndevoting almost seven years of his life to finding the truth, as well as the indignation\nfelt upon learning that his report will more than likely remain unreleased and\nburied. The actor, along with the process as depicted, certainly make the man\u2019s\nrising fury understandable and add stress to the viewing experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This ultimately is a gripping and powerful film that\ndisplays just how much important information can be hidden from the general\npublic. And additionally, what some in power are willing to do in order\nmaintain their position; namely, dealing excuses to preserve appearances and\ncontinue careers rather than acknowledge mistakes and take accountability for their\nactions. It\u2019s a disturbing precedent and an expose that is just as relevant\ntoday as when the real paper finally found the light of day. <em>The Report<\/em>\nis a timely, well-written and strongly acted piece that is very distressing but\nmost certainly worth discovering. &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Strange and sometimes sinister activities can go on behind closed doors, but none are likely to be quite as shocking and horrifying as those depicted in The Report, a true story of a senate staffer\u2019s investigation into the CIA\u2019s employment of \u201cenhanced interrogation tactics\u201d used on suspects for years after the September 11th attacks. Writer\/director [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[197,724,2789,5146,6251,22027,22028,22029],"class_list":["post-19516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-197","tag-adam-driver","tag-biopic","tag-daniel-jones","tag-drama","tag-the-report","tag-the-report-film-review","tag-the-report-movie-review"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}