RIVETING SCOOP ON POWER PLAYS AND COVER-UPS

IT’s an old-school journalism thriller set in 1971, revolving around American newspaper The Washington Post’s fight to print super secret information about the United States’ war in Vietnam, called the Pentagon Papers.

I found it riveting, an issue of freedom of the press versus political powers, etched in the socio-political history of the US.

Kudos to Steven Spielberg for letting his sterling actors — mainly Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks — tell the story behind the story.

Streep plays the new owner of the Post, Kay Graham, who inherited the paper from her late husband.

She is taking the paper public, and is treated by her board members with the societal manners of that era but Mdm Graham proves her mettle in this tense situation centring on the battle of the presses with The New York Times over the massive cover-up.

Capitol Hill had tried to use its muscle to block any expose about the Pentagon Papers that covered four American presidents. It’s a revelation that the whole affair went back 30 years before the 1970s.

Richard Nixon is in the hot seat but you see him as a shadowed figure. He is friends with Graham’s late husband, and the lady obviously moves in such power circles, counting Defence Secretary Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood), the current guy trapped in the Pentagon Papers issue, as a friend too. DIRECTED BY Steven Spielberg STARRING Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, David Cross, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Jesse Plemons, Matthew Rhys, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bradley Whitford, Zach Woods

DURATION 117 minutes

RATING PG13

But she rightly remembers what The Post is all about. And the truth did prevail.

Watching The Post for me was a blast from the past, from the running of the printing presses and production crew to laying out the typeset for the words, and the delivery of the newspaper by the early morning vendor in the street.

Such fun, as Bradlee says, although he was also referring to the chase of the story. Like an earlier film, Spotlight, the thrill of journalism and its mission are clear in The Post.

However, I am not too sure The Post Tom Hanks (first from left) and Meryl Streep (fhird from left) deliver sterling performances.

appeal to the general cinema audience. Its dramatic content is interesting, more than compelling.

Centring the tale around the question of to publish or not to publish detracts from the essence of the Pentagon Papers and the high-level secrets that seem to go with any

government machinery.

I loved it, for it seems like an ode to what journalism was once all about, instead of the current inundation of overwhelming bytes and gifs. As Graham says in the film: “Quality drives profitability.”