Portraying Dan Rather, Robert Redford perfectly captures the former CBS anchorman’s Texan vocal nuances. Yet Truth, the new film by James Vanderbilt (screenwriter, Zodiac), places its emphasis on Rather’s producer, Mary Mapes, in telling the story of their mutual downfall after televising an investigative report questioning George W. Bush’s military service. Cate Blanchett, as Mapes, displays her usual top-shelf acting talent. In one of her very best roles, here she plays a tough, ferocious journalist who is suddenly called on to get even tougher once the accuracy of the report begins to unravel.
The report, aired not long before the 2004 presidential election, came on the heels of harsh, largely inaccurate Republican “swift boat” accounts meant to discredit Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. It addressed long-discussed issues in Bush’s service record that may very well have pointed to his receiving special treatment and thus avoiding service in Vietnam. Most glaring was a year-long a gap in his service record when he seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Mapes thinks she has a smoking gun in discovering Texas Air National Guard internal memos and she and Rather get the go-ahead to present the story on 60 Minutes.
Then, a font used in the memos is, according to sources trumpeted by right-wing bloggers and talk show hosts, thought to have not been in existence at the time of the documents. Mapes’ savvy investigative reporter team (Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Elizabeth Moss) eventually find evidence the font was indeed around at that time but by then key figures have backed off from their initial on-air corroborative statements. A landslide of outrage questioning the journalistic ethics of the piece proves too much to fight and Rather eventually resigns. Bruce Greenwood is very good as CBS News president Andrew Hayward, who along with other executives, sure seems quick to throw Mapes and Rather under the bus. Their wish to portray the network as politically impartial at a time so close to the election may have been a rush to judgement, the film implies. Mapes is fired but gets to deliver a stunning diatribe against the network review board. It’s quintessential Blanchett with all her guns blazing.
Vanderbilt’s screenplay favors the idea that Mapes and Rather had the essence of the larger story but fell victim due to technicalities. Not so fast. Bush very well may have become president in 200 due to a rigged election recount process. Kerry’s candidacy may have been sideswiped by shabby accounts of his Vietnam record that a gullible electorate bought as the full truth. George W. Bush probably got a free pass when it came to potentially serving in Vietnam. As deplorable as this avalanche of deception and corruption may be, Truth doesn’t do Democrats any favors in leaning toward a side on the Mapes controversy that seems to forgive sloppy journalism as long as it’s performed on behalf of a likelihood of its investigated events. That, you can bet your Edward R. Murrow, is one slippery slope. Yet Truth ought to be commended for stirring the conversation on a topic fraught with importance.