The Post (2017)

In 1950, the first US troops arrived in Vietnam, to "supervise" the use of military equipment the US was providing to France.  Their numbers were small, and at first grew only slowly.  In 1960, there were still under 1,000 of them.

That didn't last.  By 1965, their numbers had gown nearly 200 times.  By 1968, their numbers had reached half a million.  Throughout this massive escalation, the US government (whether it be Kennedy's, or Johnson's, or Nixon's) insisted that war could and would be won.

In 1971, the New York Times began to publish stories based on classified documents that showed that the US government had known for years that Vietnam was a lost cause.  The Nixon administration moved immediately to ban the paper from making further publications about the matter.

For the Washington Post, the situation is tense.  Novice owner Katharine Graham is personal friends with some of the men being indicted by these stories.  Editor Ben Bradlee is seen as a loose cannon, and is personally frustrated that the Times got the story first, and by the government's challenge to the paper's First Amendment rights.  And some of the paper's board are more than happy to let the Times hang alone on the matter, preferring not to attract the ire of the notoriously prickly Nixon.

Of course, none of it matters if they can't find a copy of the classified documents in question.  But if they did, what then?  Would publishing the truth be worth the risk?

I don't imagine that the release of this film - which champions the role of a free press in society - at this time in history is entirely a coincidence.  The Times and the Post have been repeatedly attacked by the current administration, just as they were attacked by Nixon.

Whatever the film's motivations, is it any good?  Yeah, it's well acted and solidly put together, but it's definitely aiming at an audience that likes their films on the talky side of things.