Watch Nothing But the Truth For Free

Very well executed

Too much of everything

Better Late Then Never

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

What happens when an undercover CIA agent and the investigative journalist who is exposing her to the broad public are both dedicated mothers of kids who learn together in the same well established American urban milieu? What happens when everybody does the right thing and yet the personal lives of the people involved are destroyed or worse? What is the price that is worth paying for following one's principles – family, freedom, life? These are some of the questions that are being asked in Nothing But the Truth, the 2008 film directed by Rod Lurie.Despite the disclaimer that starts the film the story is obviously inspired by a true case and the lead character by a true person – Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter who served 85 days in prison for refusing to name her source in a case where the name of a government agent was made public. It can also be seen as a strong feminist story, as all the key involved persons (the journalist, her redactor-in-chief boss, and the CIA agent) are all women, while the system of justice persons (the prosecutor, the lawyer, the judge) are all men. The story tells about political reporter Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale) getting under pressure to disclose the source of the information she published about the real identity of a CIA agent, actually a whistle-blower whose revelations are covered up. The clash is between the journalism ethics and the government secrecy, as what is perceived by the journalist as protection of her sources is from the legal point of view a possible crime of disclosing the identity of the agents. The price is however to be paid by both women in their personal life, although the film mostly focuses on the fate of the reporter. How far will she go to respect her principles? The specialty of director Rod Lurie seems to be in political films, but here he succeeds to create not only an interesting intrigue and ask the tough questions, but also to build a credible character drama that exceeds the strict borders of the story. Lurie also wrote the script and the story flows well and is helped by an efficient team of actors. Best are Kate Beckinsale in the lead role and Matt Dillon as the prosecutor. The resulting film is both entertaining and raises interesting issues, it's a politically-motivated film that avoids being dry and rhetorical by focusing on the human dimensions of the story.

At some future date in our history there is an assassination attempt on our president. That is used to justify a military intervention in Venezuela when it's leaked to the press that they were behind the attempt. Kate Beckinsale investigative reporter writes the story and in doing so outs her neighbor Vera Famigia as a CIA operative. That's against the law and the government wants to know who her source is. But being the good journalist she is she won't reveal. So it's off to prison with her and that's only the beginning of her problems.The federal government is really vindictive in its persecution of her. They've even got a special prosecutor in Matt Dillon who is just devoted to her case alone. Talk about overkill. Dillon does very well in the part and never lets it slip into caricature. He genuinely believes in what he's doing and never sees the implications that Beckinsale's civil liberties lawyer Alan Alda does.Unfortunately outing Famigia makes her a target too and tragically so. That only makes Dillon and our government redouble its efforts to make an example of Beckinsale. As for Beckinsale she's wonderful in her part as unexpected hero who really sacrifices all for a free press.We do in fact learn the original source of her story and all I can say is it is sublimely bizarre. I would love to have seen Matt Dillon try to prosecute the source.

I'm not generally one for the political thrillers but this was pretty good. I was engrossed enough to find myself frustrated by 'Rachel's' decisions and the story is definitely thought provoking, with Kate Beckinsale playing a principled investigative journalist in Washington DC who writes a story that outs a CIA operative and winds up going to jail for not revealing her source.There's an excellent cast attached here(Alan Alda, Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer, Matt Dillon, Noah Wyle, Vera Farmiga) all giving good performances and the ending provided a twist that totally surprised me and explained why she couldn't give up her source, because all along I'd been thinking; you're losing everything, your marriage, son, career and nobody cares anymore what for. Why don't you just give up the damn source? It's not worth all this. 03.18.14

After a Presidential assassination attempt, he orders an attack against Venezuela. Columnist Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale) writes that the President ignored CIA operative Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga) when ordering the attack. The media descends on Erica and her life is turned upside down. The government moves to force Rachel to name her secret source. She refuses and is jailed for contempt.Of course, it's a ripped-from-the-headlines kind of story. They make sure to say that this is fictional. Writer/director Rod Lurie does a reasonable job but this has a bit too much TV movie feel. Maybe he should have not copied so much from the headlines. There are big enough actors involved but it needs big cinematic flourishes. I won't give any spoilers, but I do love the big reveal at the end.