The Report 2019

The Report

The Report

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About The Report 💬

''Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.''

George Washington

• Based on the Senate Intelligence Committee study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program.

THE REPORT is a riveting thriller based on actual events.

• The torture report.

Idealistic staffer Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver) is tasked by his boss Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) to lead an investigation of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was created in the aftermath of 9/11. Jones' relentless pursuit of the truth leads to explosive findings that uncover the lengths to which the nation's top intelligence agency went to destroy evidence, subvert the law, and hide a brutal secret from the American public.

• WRITER-DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

Like Frank Serpico, Karen Silkwood, and Erin Brockovich, the story of Daniel J. Jones is a tale of someone who discovers an ugly truth in the world and then must decide what to do with it. He is the unlikely hero, burdened with information, who is compelled to stand up against the system. These people are frequently buried deep in an existing power structure, but they will not be silenced once the scales have been lifted from their eyes. They are called upon to make extreme personal sacrifices in the name of the greater good.

In THE REPORT, Daniel Jones is tasked with uncovering the gruesome realities of the CIA program conducted under the George W. Bush administration following the attacks of 9/11. Spending years in a windowless room, Jones learns that it is not only the buildings that collapsed that dreadful day; they were followed by a kind of moral collapse that afflicted our leaders and the CIA. Going back to George Washington, the prohibitions against torture are inherent in our country's identity - and yet we were quick to abandon the moral high ground. One must certainly consider that our willingness to do so was in large part due to the simple fact that our perceived opponents were not white people of European descent.

After having written movies about people who have lied for various reasons - Mark Whitacre in The Informant!, Donald Crowhurst in The Mercy, or even Emily Taylor in the fictional Side Effects - I wanted to explore a character who confronts falsehood rather than perpetrates it. When I was growing up, I was greatly influenced by the political thrillers of the '70s and felt this story had a kinship with films like All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, and The Parallax View - those films informed a great many of our decisions and I acknowledge my debt to Pakula, Pollack, and others.

We have laws and ideals not for the days when life is easy, but for the days when we see our world shattered by terror and cruelty. The wisdom in those laws is there to guide us when we are blinded by rage and grief, but instead, America and our leaders moved toward what Dick Cheney readily admitted was the ''dark side.'' The psychiatrist James Gilligan once said: ''Violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem.'' And it is this ill-fated attempt by the CIA under Bush and Cheney that Jones chronicles in the 6,700 pages of the full Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report.

The truth is not always welcomed by history - or by politics - and Jones finds that the American government would have preferred to keep this grim story hidden rather than confront it and inspect its lessons. And so, THE REPORT is not just the story of brutal and ineffective policies that were pursued and then lied about, it is also the story of one public servant - a Senate staffer - who worked for years to expose the truth to the world.

One can lament the Kafka-esque journey imposed upon Jones by the system or celebrate his dedication to public service. Is our democracy broken beyond repair, or does it just require a certain level of integrity to work? To me, Dan is an unsung American hero, and I hope this film reminds audiences that there are still people who grow up and move to Washington who want to do something meaningful for all of us. As long as there are public servants like Daniel J. Jones out there, I think there's a lot of cause for hope.

Scott Z. Burns

The Report Movie Details 🎥

Directed by

Scott Z. Burns

Writing Credits

Scott Z. Burns

Starring

Adam Driver

Annette Bening

Linda Powell

West Duchovny

Jon Hamm

Julia Murney

Corey Stoll

Hope Blackstock

Matthew Rhys

Joanne Tucker

Maura Tierney

Michael C. Hall

Sarah Goldberg

Lucas Dixon

Douglas Hodge

T. Ryder Smith

Sean Dugan

Tim Blake Nelson

Fajer Al-Kaisi

Andrew Glaszek

Zuhdi Boueri

Ratnesh Dubey

Ted Levine

April Rogalski

Jennifer Morrison

Pun Bandhu

Joseph Siravo

Ian Blackman

Dominic Fumusa

James Hindman

Carlos Gómez

John Rothman

Victor Slezak

Guy Boyd

Neil Fleischer

Scott Shepherd

Noah Bean

Christopher G Gates

Kevin D. McGee

Xan Aspero

Sandra Landers

Alexander Chaplin

Ben McKenzie

Jake Silbermann

Daniel London

Gregory Jones

Lauren S. Gordon

Austin Michael Young

Evander Duck Jr.

Music by

David Wingo

Cinematography by

Eigil Bryld

Category: Golden Globes, Golden Globe Nominee

Genres: Biography, Crime, Drama, History, Thriller, War

Country: United States

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