Truth 2015

     CBS News head Mary Mapes and newscaster Dan Rather work together on a 60 Minutes news program prior to the 2004 presidential election.  Mary obtains documents stating that the then President and candidate George W. Bush did not serve in Vietnam or in the Texas Air National Guard but he skipped out on this duty.  He also received preferential treatment as the son of a former president to serve in the Guard.  His Guard service records were forged to indicate his dates of participation.  Mary and her team have the documents gone over by authenticity experts but they don’t have the originals.  They also contact sources by phone for their expert opinions on the reliability of the documents.  Everything starts to fall apart when questions about the documents come from every angle.

      CBS is a corporate-owned news media and they were not about to take any heat over a news program!!  It doesn’t matter what the truth really is, it only matters if there are complaints.  No one who later had challenges ever asked if the story was true but they only cared about the authenticity of the documents themselves.  The investigation started after a news piece about Abu Ghraib raised questions about the military record of Bush.  A team assembled by CBS grills Mapes but none of her ‘testimony’ is recorded and her political beliefs must be her reason for releasing this story?  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

125 min, Bio directed by James Vanderbilt with Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, John Benjamin Hickey, David Lyons.

Note:  Imdb 6.8 out of 10, 62% critic 64% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 3*, Amazon 4.1* out of 5* with 308 reviews.

Special Note:  Currently National Amusements is the owner of Viacom and Sumner Redstone.  Sumner Redstone oversees the CSB News.  Filmed in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; New York and Los Angeles, California.  Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace have been in two previous films together Traffic 2000, In Good Company 2004.  If you check online reports about the story of the Guard and President Bush it is true!!