The Post

(M) ★★★

Director: Steven Spielberg.

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sarah Paulson.

No one could believe he was buying another vowel.

Spielberg. Streep. Hanks. These are quality names.

Throw in John Williams and Janusz Kamiński too. And Bob Odenkirk - obviously he's not in the same league, but come on...  it's Bob Odenkirk.

There is some serious talent here, with each of them acquitting themselves perfectly well. It's all solid work. It's a good job, well done.

But the problem with The Post is it's only just a good film - with this director and this lead duo, it should be a great one. Or is that expecting too much from the Spielberg/Streep/Hanks triumvirate?

Even ignoring the shadow cast by the incredible careers of these three titans of Tinsel Town, a more powerful legend looms larger over The Post - a little film called All The President's Men.

As previously stated, All The President's Men is the gold standard for journalism dramas, and The Post is lucky to limp home with a bronze. Spielberg's ode to The Washington Post is a historical prequel to Pakula's 1976 classic - The Post details the newspaper's coverage of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, which happened about a year before Woodward and Bernstein's stories on the Watergate scandal.

At the centre of the film is Post owner Katharine Graham (Streep), the first woman to publish a major American newspaper (and someone who was unfortunately written out of All The President's Men). As she grapples with her paper being floated on the stock market, the paper's editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) laments being left in the dust by their rivals The New York Times over the so-called leaked Pentagon Papers, which detailed the US Government's own knowledge of their likely failure in the Vietnam War.

When Post journalist Ben Bagdikian (Odenkirk) gets hold of a large stack of the Pentagon Papers, it thrusts The Post into the firing line of the Nixon's government, which had already ordered The Times to stop publishing details from the leaked report. Katharine must make a choice - publish and potentially lose her paper, or sit back and wait for the whole thing to blow over.

It's a story with modern resonance. Not only is the press battling a president, but there is also a woman battling to find her feet in a man's world. It's got government secrets, a turning tide of public sentiment, and media outlets fighting for their constitutional right to hold politicians accountable.

While the story of The Post is great on, ahem, paper, it doesn't hold up as well as, say, All The President's Men on screen. The script is a little undercooked, which doesn't help. The tough task of telling an entire story through newsroom and boardroom conversations, as well as people poring over a box of government documents was never going to be an easy one, but The Post actually fumbles some of its storytelling (particularly early on) and struggles to maintain momentum.

Even the great Spielberg seems to struggle to find ways to ramp up the tension. He spins his camera, uses quirky angles, goes for quick cuts, gets his actors moving around, and it all feels distracting, regularly smacking of failed attempts to manufacture drama in static situations. Even Williams' score work seems ratcheted up to do some of the emotional heavy lifting. Spielberg seems acutely aware of the lack of spark in the narrative.

These criticisms aside, the film is generally good, especially when it hits its stride in the final act. It's also a loving ode to the glory days of newspapers, and its production design is a smoky haze of cigarettes and typewriter ink, captured by Kamiński's usual excellence.

Central are Streep and Hanks, and it's a joy to see them tussle on screen. Both bring their 'A' games, as always, but neither's performance would rate in their top 10s. Ditto for Spielberg - when he gets things right (which is a lot of the time) the film sails along enjoyably, but he also falls short of his past excellence.

Ultimately The Post is let down by the fact it never moves you to the edge of your seat, or indeed really moves you at all. It says important things, but often in a somewhat laboured fashion, and it is a reminder of why we need a free press while still being mostly entertaining, if a little humourless.

In years to come, this film will predominantly serve as a reminder of that time Spielberg, Streep and Hanks all worked together. As such, it will probably be remembered as a novelty, as opposed to an example of their best work.