DoctorJA
So Dan Rather and his Producer Mary Mapes report that there's a smoking gun 'letter' that proves George W. Bush's father's political connections evaded Vietnam. That's the only truth here. It was in the environment of 2004 Presidential election, and the obvious motive was to draw contrast to John Kerry who did serve in Vietnam and help Kerry defeat then-President Bush. This 'letter' proved to be a fabrication as the font used in the letter wasn't invented until more than 20-plus years later. Thank God this falsification occurred before the election, but I shudder to think if had not been found to be a fake until after AND Kerry had won in a close election... So why would there be a movie made showing rank liars and people trying to undermine our democracy by lying and hiding under the First Amendment AND making them heroes? Just watch CNN or any other of the 'main stream' news and you'll realize that they are no longer concerned with reporting facts and context, today they are trying to manipulate you by 'reporting' things as they see it through their liberal narrative. PERIOD!This is probably one of the lamest movies I've ever seen, trying to pull every emotionally manipulative string. What else would you expect when the co-writer is laughably Ms. Mapes herself?? Talk about self-indulgent. But I guess the biggest question is: which movie executive gave the green light to this sh!tpile and who even went to see it??
gbkmmaurstad
CBS prime news producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) and her staff investigate allegations that George W. Bush was given preferential treatment while in the military which kept him out of Viet Nam and that he may have also been AWOL for a periods of time. Believing the memos in their position are hard evidence validating their claims, they prepare a segment for their weekly 60 Minutes program. News veteran Dan Rather delivers their findings before their viewing audience just months before the 2004 presidential election.This film illustrates how people can convince themselves they are doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons and leads to the beginning of the downfall of news organizations. If you're not sure how the news is produced, you might want to see this one.
katz6
This film came out in the twilight of the Obama years, and it's now 2017, and how the country has changed. I resisted seeing this film because I knew it would make me angry. And it did. But that does not take away from the story, and especially the acting. This film is more about Mary Mapes than Dan Rather, and the roller-coaster ride she and her crack team of reporters (all beautifully played by Dennis Quaid, Elizabeth Moss, and particularly Topher Grace) took while investigating the military background of soon-to-be-re-elected George W. Bush. Although I have not researched this myself to confirm, the film mentions that Mapes, Rather and CBS wanted more time to verify the sources and evidence, but "60 Minutes" and other hard news programs were being relegated to late hours with millions of less viewers, to be replaced by evangelical programming and reality TV shows. In the end, the film is about how hard news was once, as Rather says at the end, a big draw for viewership. Americans had an insatiable appetite for the truth. The Watergate Hearings in the summer of 1973 was the top rated show of the summer. I am old enough to remember the days when "60 Minutes" was the number one viewed show for years in a row. This was when most Americans had only 4 or 5 networks on TV to pick from (the big three, plus an independent station or two, and PBS; Fox did not arrive until much later). The elimination of the FCC Fairness Doctrine in 1987 by the Reagan Administration allowed news networks to air on cable presenting woefully one-sided material without a requirement to present the other side. This led to Fox News on the right, and MSNBC on the left (although I would argue MSNBC does in fact present the other side with Morning Joe and other conservative- leaning anchors). Fox News does not...liberal guests or, in the case of Alan Colmes, anchors, were there to be whipping material, and were shouted down or cut off completely by the conservatives.We are now living in an era of over 500 cable channels, not to mention the internet (and the internet will probably be the one place where Americans can get unfiltered truthful journalism; that is, if the Trump administration does not eliminate net neutrality). Americans are more interested in sports, reality TV, and Game of Thrones, and have been turned off by the news, with the exception of the 70+ Fox News addicts out there (who are akin to heroin addicts). When Dish Network threatened to drop Fox News from their roster, because NewsCorp raised the rates (and it was Dish's free market decision to do so), I saw posts by Fox News addicts complaining that they could not sleep "without their fix of Fox News." Thanks to this brainwashing, the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Time Magazine, etc. have been dubbed "fake news," while the National Enquirer and New York Post are trusted by this group as "legitimate." Something the real Rather has been fairly vocal about. But I digress. If they could turn back time, would Mapes, Rather, and CBS had waited until after the election to present the story, or not, if the sources had been revealed to be inaccurate as they were? Who knows. It is a fascinating story, and although many right wingers in my family adamantly refuse to watch the film because of its story, the "liberal actors," and their irrational hatred of Dan Rather ("a traitor and a commie" to them), the movie is not the extreme left wing film they may imagine. The Oscar-winning "Spotlight" actually had more of a left slant than "Truth."Robert Redford as Dan Rather is a revelation. Redford doesn't look much like Rather, but he's mastered Rather's mannerisms and vocal style in the same way Christopher Plummer mastered Mike Wallace in "The Insider." Seeing this film some 40 years after "All the President's Men" was released is also interesting; how much news has changed, regardless of media outlet. And Cate Blanchett as Mapes...what can I say, an incredible performance. Watch out Meryl Streep--Cate Blanchett is on your heels as the greatest female actor on the planet today. The film could have been a little longer to flesh out some characters (Moss more or less disappears after the first half), but highly recommended. Especially in this era when "facts" are being deemed as "fake news" by the current President, while conspiracy theories (as the Republicans called the story Mapes broke in 2004) are being called "real news." I didn't hear a fraction of the anger the Republicans displayed in 2004 from the Democrats when Fox News called Barack Obama a "non American."
