The Post (2017)

This film is basically the prequel to All the President's Men (1976), a great film with excellent actors. However, this film is different, but also the same. The government has secrets and doesn't want the general public to know the truth. They lied to us, for decades.
First, The New York Times has some secret documents and The Washington Post's editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) is livid that they got them first, but they are slapped with a cease and desist order.
Fortunately, the Post has a journalist, Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) who digs, calls of his old contacts and goes to Boston to fetch four thousand pages of these classified documents. And then the crew assembles at Bradlee's house, sorting through all the papers and coming up with a story, despite the lawyers getting involved, despite the impeding lawsuit.
In the end, the decision comes down to the paper's owner, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) who is the only woman in a man's world and has just made the shares of the paper public, so this decision is a big deal as it could mean jail time for her and Bradlee.
The case does go to the Supreme Court but the papers win and soon, all the papers pick up the story. Kay is grateful that she survived this battle and hopes that life will be easy after this, but Watergate is just around the corner.
While the film is more than solid, the secret that America remained in Vietnam to save face, all those men dying needlessly isn't enough attention and people don't get angry enough over it. And the court case is brushed over.
But the atmosphere is there. This is a time when a conference call meant picking up the extension in the other room and when people relied on the newspapers for the news as the internet wasn't around. The performances are brilliant and inspired and the film is packed with talent, including Tracy Letts, Jesse Plemons, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Sarah Paulson and Carrie Coon. And the film is assembled brilliantly, save for one minor inconsistency of the position of Kay's robe. It is fascinating to see how the paper was put together and how dedicated people were to get the facts right. Streep fully deserved her Oscar nomination and Hanks was robbed. But I wish the film had ended differently, instead of setting it up for a sequel that wouldn't be needed as that film has already been made. That was unnecessary when the main plot had been wrapped up. Nevertheless, this is still one of the best films of last year, and makes you hope that journalists still have that much integrity. Grade: A-