Robert Redford as beleaguered anchor Dan Rather.
The title of Truth feels like it should be spoken with an exclamation point. You can almost hear Tom Cruise saying it with righeousness, the way he does when demanding the truth before Jack Nicholson’s famous monologue in A Few Good Men. Except that this movie doesn’t understand how righteousness is often misplaced.
Writer/director John Vanderbilt’s dramatization of the controversy surrounding 60 Minutes’ 2004 story about President George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service is based on a memoir by Mary Mapes, the producer of that story. Its entire premise is that what actually transpired during the course of Bush’s service (or lack thereof) circa 1968-1973 is the only thing that really should have mattered — not how the journalists involved gathered and vetted their story. That premise is so false that it becomes virtually impossible to take seriously anything that Truth tries to say.
Vanderbilt does an effective job of setting the stage for Bush’s tightly contested 2004 reelection battle with John Kerry, where anything might tip the balance one way or the other. Into that fray tread Mapes (Cate Blanchett) and her research team when they get a bombshell tip. Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (Stacy Keach) claims to have documents that prove Bush was AWOL from his National Guard posting, which will be tied into a story — anchored by CBS News veteran Dan Rather (Robert Redford) — showing that the Bush family used political connections to keep George W. out of Vietnam and in the National Guard.
That story eventually blows up in everyone’s face. The bulk of Truth then becomes a story about the fallout, as CBS News scurries to cover its ass, and other media outlets pile on the allegations of shoddy journalism initiated by conservative bloggers.
Mapes is at the center of it all, and Vanderbilt has trouble shaping a consistent characterization. Blanchett is effective at conveying Mapes’ bulldog tenacity, but there’s an uneven attempt to incorporate her history as a survivor of childhood beatings by her bullying father. It’s even more puzzling when we watch Mapes read comments on conservative websites, and react with pearl-clutching alarm at seeing threats and insults directed at her — an oddly naïve response, given that she had already produced the story revealing the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
The larger problem with Truth is that it never really confronts the allegations of journalistic sloppiness as worthy of legitimate concern. In one of the film’s most intriguing bits of background, we watch as Mapes is forced by the network’s schedule to choose between rushing the story into a slot just days away or waiting until too close to the election. Despite the number of speeches we get from people lamenting the fate of hard journalism in the face of corporate concerns, Truth doesn’t take on the potentially enlightening premise of, “Yeah, the story was a botch job, but here’s why, and why that matters.”
Instead, the narrative is built on the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy — and while that conspiracy absolutely and positively exists, it’s a dodge in this case. The film’s references to the “Swift Boat Veterans” attacks that damaged the Kerry campaign are relevant, because they demonstrate what’s supposed to be the difference between real journalism and a smear campaign: an almost scientific dedication to results that can be duplicated. Truth ignores that journalism is built on the same old saying that applies to prosecutors: It doesn’t matter what you know, it matters what you can prove.
The title alone demonstrates a focus completely different from what it would have been if the title had been, say, Proof. When it comes to understanding that journalism demands that higher standard, Vanderbilt can’t handle the truth.
