Caught this movie just before it left Whitehorse. Most of the interest for me was to see two iconic actors together, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. The movie is nominated for Best Picture and for Best Actress (Streep). I thought the subject matter, though important, might be a bit dry or too technical to watch and the first portion of the movie proved me right. There was a lot of newspaper people running around trying to gather top secret information and keep it top secret until printing with two rival newspapers trying to make the front page splash first. And, I was trying to grasp this important story as, for some reason, I missed it in real life (of course, I was a young pseudo hippy with other things on my mind). The story revolves around the secret Pentagon Papers, a USA Department of Defence paper describing military and political US involvement in the Vietnam War over the time of (I think it was) 4 presidents. The papers states that the US cannot pull out of the war without humiliation and therefore must continue to fight until they could find a way out with their heads held high. In the mean time, young Americans were dying in Vietnam. It was exposed when Nixon was in office - as if he didn't have enough troubles anyway. Streep is the first female owner of a large newspaper and Hanks is the editor. 1971 was still a man's world and Streep had to dig deep to find the strength to perform in this arena. The movie moved quickly during the last 2/3's and at times I wanted to jump up and clap my hands. The fight that still goes on today - government cover ups v freedom of the press. I enjoyed this movie and there was a lot to talk about after, over our glass of brandy (it was a cold cold night). I give it 3.9 Stars out of 5.
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