Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Truth Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 2, 2016

Truth isn't the first film in which legendary Actor Robert Redford has portrayed a journalist at the center of a media storm that threatens to destroy a sitting U.S. President. In 1976, he played print Reporter Bob Woodward in All the President's Men, the story of the two journalists who broke the Watergate scandal story that ultimately led to President Richard M. Nixon's resignation from office. In first-time Director James Vanderbilt's (writer, Zodiac) debut feature Truth, Redford portrays longtime CBS television news Anchor Dan Rather who reports on a story, seemingly well vetted and authentic, surrounding controversy of then-President George W. Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard at the height of the Vietnam conflict, a controversy that could very well cost him re-election in the 2004 Presidential race. Unfortunately, and unlike All the President's Men, Truth fails to capture the imagination, weave a gripping tale of how journalism works and influences the political landscape, or even feature stellar lead performances. The movie instead feels sloppily assembled -- its first half in particular -- and, while it recounts events, plays with an empty spirit as the story builds, unravels, and the fallout shakes up the CBS news landscape forever.

There's a storm coming...

Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) is a CBS TV producer who finds herself with the opportunity to break the biggest story of her life, one that could end sitting President George W. Bush's re-election bid and hand the election to Democratic Senator John Kerry. She believes that records reveal that Bush, decades before his first Presidential term, received preferential admittance to the Texas Air National Guard, after which he failed to appear for routine mandated physicals and went AWOL for an entire year, all to avoid combat service in Vietnam. Mapes, with the blessings of her superiors, including CBS President Andrew Heyward (Bruce Greenwood), assembles a team to put together the story, corroborate it, and air it. Her team includes an ex-Marine named Roger Charles (Dennis Quaid) who previously helped Mapes break the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal, a People.com gossiper named Mike Smith (Topher Grace), and Journalism Professor Lucy Scott (Elisabeth Moss). The story seems bulletproof; the paper trail appears legit and the interviewees are sure of their memories. CBS runs with the story, with Anchor Dan Rather presenting it to a captivated national audience. But just as CBS is celebrating the story's successful airing, questions begin to arise as to the authenticity of evidential documents. Soon, Mapes, Rather, and all of CBS enter a maelstrom of backlash, forcing them to either double down on the story or reexamine ever-mounting evidence that the documents are forgeries and the interviewees are lying.

CBS' own review of the movie wasn't exactly flattering:

It's astounding how little truth there is in 'Truth.' There are, in fact, too many distortions, evasions and baseless conspiracy theories to enumerate them all. The film tries to turn gross errors of journalism and judgment into acts of heroism and martyrdom. That's a disservice not just to the public but to journalists across the world who go out every day and do everything within their power, sometimes at great risk to themselves, to get the story right.
Obviously, the Network has an image to uphold as it operates in an ever-competitive news marketplace. The story and its allegations were damaging to the network then, and while they're not quite so damaging now -- Rather is long retired and Mapes hasn't worked in television news since -- the film opens old wounds still in the healing process.

What's wrong with Truth, at least viewing it as an outsider rather than as someone with more immediate and intimate knowledge of the story depicted in the movie (who will, in almost every case, find films deeply flawed, misleading, or otherwise drastically rearranged from reality; CBS isn't exactly treading new ground with its criticism), isn't that it tells the story, it's that it tells the story in extraordinarily shallow ways and in excruciatingly dull detail that should be anything but. The film's first half comes painfully short of audience-absorbing as the depiction of Mapes and her team assembling the story from the ground up -- vetting and interviewing sources, pouring through materials, collaborating in the office, editing video -- lacks any kind of spark, pacing, or sense of dramatic foreboding. Characters seem almost painfully gleeful at the prospects of breaking the story. The audience can practically see their thoughts of a place in Woodward and Bernstein-esque history dancing in their eyes. Never mind their politics; it's the rush of impending immortality that seems to drive them, and their oftentimes wild-eyed, over-excitable approach does a disservice to the depiction of the journalistic process. They get their comeuppance in the film's darker, more grounded, more entertaining second half as the story unravels and the team scrambles through the fallout and goes into damage control mode, both on-air and behind-the-scenes.

The film never really gets to the heart of the matter, either. It's more coy than it should be in examining the core of journalistic integrity, at least until one scene partway in the movie when there's a pointed critique of the modern news cycle -- breaking news isn't as important as reporting on some other outlet that's breaking news (imagine what they would think of how it works #today) -- and Rather taking a high road reflection on the business in a phone call with Mapes near film's end. While the movie's frantic quest for answers in its tonally darker second half sees it rebound from its dismal first, all of the excitement feels superficial. It's entertainingly robust but emotionally hollow. Truth does well at telling the story and putting a face to names, but it's otherwise a disappointing recreation that never gets all that deep beyond the superficial details of one of the most important stories to come from the journalism world in these first years of the 21st century.

Truth Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Truth's 1080p transfer won't redefine the way people view Blu-ray, but it's a solid, source-based image that carries the movie well. The digital photography translates easily to 1080p, reproducing, often, fine and exacting details in the broader spectrum of clothes, faces, and general backgrounds in homes, offices, and studios. Sharpness and clarity are strong points, and only intermittent bouts of lightly smeary details emerge. Colors are nicely balanced; as discussed in the commentary, the palette is brightest at the beginning and grows gradually darker as the film progresses. Beyond the film's purposeful delineations and external lighting factors, every hue is well saturated throughout. Black levels never stray too far from ideal and flesh tones likewise are fine, again within lighting contexts. Mild noise and trace banding appear, but other maladies don't play a factor into a positive, faithful transfer from Sony.

Truth Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Truth features a dialogue-heavy DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Vocal definition is firm and clear. The track offers constant prioritization and center placement. Music enjoys strong definition and effortless stage immersion. Supportive effects help integrate the listener into the movie. Things like microphone reverberation throughout a large formal gathering, basic office din, or background elements at a party give a nice, gentle sense of space to the film's locations. There's nice heft to a plane takeoff and, later in the movie, a crack of thunder. On the whole, the track doesn't offer much in the way of sonic variety or intensity, but what's here is handled professionally and accurately, as expected of a new release lossless soundtrack.

Truth Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Truth contains a commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes, and a Q&A. A UV digital copy code is included with purchase.

• Audio Commentary: Writer/Director James Vanderbilt and Producers Brad Fischer and William Sherak set out to offer a substantive commentary track, and succeed. They discuss project origins and inspirations, including the real story and Mapes' book. They cover the movie's structure, working with the real Mary Mapes, story themes, the producers' work on the movie, casting, the movie's visual tones and composition, music, and much more. The track offers a fascinating look at not only the how's of the filmmaking process, but also, and much more interesting, the why's. The disc is worth checking out for this extra alone.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p): Heyward Introduces Rather Extended (3:09), He Wore That Uniform (1:30), Meeting Burkett (3:47), I Knew You Could Do This (1:39), Gotta Go Kiddo (1:22), and Josh Offers to Resign (1:17).
• The Reason for Being (1080p, 11:32): The real Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, along with Truth's cast, discuss the real history behind the movie and the journalistic landscape of the time. In this piece and in a few sound bytes, Rather himself gives a weight to the ideas that run through Truth in a way that the movie can never approach in two hours.
• The Team (1080p, 8:43): A quick look at the main cast and the characters they portray.
• Q&A with Cate Blanchett, Elisabeth Moss, and Director/Writer James Vanderbilt (1080p, 32:59): Moderator Jenelle Riley probes the participants with a number of questions surrounding project origins and the real history behind the movie, the actors' attachment to the film, cast and performances, the core story elements, the title, shooting locations, on-set life and work during the shoot, actor and director camaraderie, and more.
• Truth Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:06).
• Previews (1080p): Additional Sony titles.

Truth Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Truth does a fair enough job of recreating and recounting the nuts-and-bols details of CBS' messy 2004 Presidential election cycle scandal, but there's no center to it. The movie suffers from a terribly uneven tone, its first half far too excitable and its second half hardly as dramatically deep as it should have been. Performances are wildly uneven, too, and largely disappointing. Dan Rather is not a role Robert Redford was born to play. Redford doesn't even really try to recreate the man, only stand in his shoes, which further plays to the movie's off-kilter, lightweight feel. Cate Blanchett, playing the film's central figure Mary Mapes, finds the greatest emotional range and is about the only piece of the movie that feels the least bit authentic. Truth makes for a good sideshow look into the modern newsroom and political controversy but offers little more. Sony's Bu-ray does provide solid video and audio as well as a fair assortment of extra content, headlined by a terrific audio commentary. Rent it.