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THE POST (12A)

DIRECTOR Steven Spielberg’s handsome dramatisation of events leading up to the high-profile legal wrangling between the New York Times and President Richard Nixon feels uncomfortably relevant in a modern era of fake news and presidential Twitter outbursts.

The Post is also a timely depiction of gender inequality in the workplace and lionises the achievements of Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, who risked losing the family business because she refused to be bullied by a patriarchal establishment.

Tubs are repeatedly thumped in Spielberg’s picture, most powerfully in Meryl Streep’s tour de force portrayal of Graham, which captures every facet of a working mother’s resolve, inner turmoil and defiance.

Tom Hanks provides robust support as Ben Bradlee, crusading executive editor of the Washington Post.

After a sluggish opening 15 minutes, The Post whirrs smoothly into action, cutting back and forth between Graham and Bradlee’s personal odysseys.

Period detail is impeccable and Spielberg’s frequent cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and composer John Williams add lustre to the stylish project.

THE COMMUTER (15)

SPANISH director Jaume Collet-Serra’s high-octane action thriller careers along the Hudson Line of New York City’s busy Metro-North Railroad for a preposterous high-stakes game of hide and seek involving a former NYPD detective (Liam Neeson) on board an evening rush hour train.

Logic is left standing on the platform of Grand Central station as three scriptwriters merrily propel their twodimensional characters down narrative sidings in order to extend our journey time and give the false impression of dramatic momentum.

A ridiculously overblown finale, which begs unfavourable comparisons with Jan de Bont’s Speed, temporarily quickens the pulse but The Commuter has already derailed before this spectacular, special effects-laden flourish.

There’s not one instance when we fear for Neeson’s flawed hero, even when his head is being thrust out of a smashed carriage window into the path of an oncoming train.

The wheels come off Collet-Serra’s picture but the Ballymena-born leading man chugs on regardless.