The Pentagon Papers
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: D Telefilm: B
In its
glory days, the TV movie developed into either films that were
bad-but-interesting, several TV series going on at once in rotation (The
NBC Mystery Movie has Columbo, McCloud and McMillan & Wife, for instance), or even some classics (Night Stalker, Brian’s Song, The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman).
A few were even so good that they received theatrical distribution in Europe (Steven Spielberg’s Duel) or even released in theaters in
the U.S. (Joseph Sargent’s Tribes). That was the kind of financial power the big
three networks had consolidated by the late 1960s with color TV and the
telefilm rising at the same time. This
all changed by the 1980s, because of cable channels and home videotapes,
rendering these films a joke; just about anywhere they were being made. Rod Holcomb’s The Pentagon Papers (2003) is one of the rare exceptions.
James
Spader, one of the most underappreciated actors of his generation, is American
hero Daniel Ellsberg, the man who exposed all the lies about genocidal cover-up
by the U.S. Government in the Vietnam fiasco. After reading through top secret documents
that were following years of research he did to help the government do the
right things to handle the situation and get the conflict over with. It turns out, of course, that the Nixon
Administration was doing everything they could to keep the bombing going at any
cost for political reasons. They were
hiding tons of things that were outrageous beyond belief.
There is
the woman (Claire Forlani, in a comeback role) who may or may not help him, the
politically radical friend (Paul Giamatti) who also becomes a Nixon
Administration target when the papers come into question, and the man with a family
who begins the long process of xeroxing every single page on much slower, older
machines of the time. He goes to a New
York Times contact and eventually convinces them to publish everything, but the
Nixon Administration actually takes them to court to halt this and try the two
men for treason. The result and
additional events in addition to this changed the course of the country for
good.
Most
films, especially telefilms, would just do a very run of the mill job of
painting the events by numbers, but Jason Horwitch’s teleplay is much smarter,
capturing the feel of the era and being much more thorough about it and the
facts of this case. This is good
storytelling and Spader proves once again he can be more than just a bad
guy. Alan Arkin also stars.
The full
frame image is on the soft side, especially surprising for a recent
production. Michael Mayers did a really
good job of shooting this and making it look better that the endless sludge of
flatly-lit TV movie garbage. The film
was co-produced by Paramount Television and Fox’s FX Network, the latter being
a surprise considering how conservative the company is. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has healthy Pro
Logic surrounds and is more like it.
There are no extras, sadly.
So,
cheers to all involved. This will not
mark any kind of revival of telefilms anytime soon, but reminds us how good
they could be at their best. It is smart
television telling us the truth about something without turning it into a
stupid political argument. It shows when
wrong is wrong and that is rare on TV of any kind these days. The
Pentagon Papers is a must-see.
- Nicholas Sheffo
