[Review] The Post (8.5/10)

I was really glad when I saw The Post playing in the cinemas still here in Bangkok, and I ended up really liking the movie so much that I may have to rethink my Top 10 movies of 2017.

One of the main reasons for how great this movie turned out was because it was under the capable and impeccable direction of Steven Spielberg. To have such a dry topic to present in a movie format, and to have almost no culmination or a point of crescendo in the storyline, and yet the way Spielberg crafted the movie had everything that was needed.

And this was also why Spielberg is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of our time. Compared to something like Darkest Hour which was also dialogue driven, The Post was a few notches more entertaining and as an overall movie it was created and architectured with a higher quality. Even the extras in backgrounds looked like they were directed with details.

Speaking of quality, Spielberg brought in some heavy hitters and also some great character actors that again elevated the movie to a different level. Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks obviously, but also some really great actors from the world of TV like Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Bradley Whitford, David Cross, Matthew Rhys and Carrie Coon.

And then Jesse Plemons who has been getting great roles in movies, albeit small, but he is getting the right projects consistently.

Tracy Letts and Bruce Greenwood were just fantastic, as was Michael Stuhlbarg who has appeared in three Oscar nominated movies this year and yet did not get nominated for any when he rightly should have for either The Shape Of Water or Call Me By Your Name. In the same regard, Letts also had a great shot of being nominated for either this movie or Lady Bird.

Unfortunately, the first half of the movie took a lot of time to properly set up. I don't quite fault Spielberg as I believe every scene was required to set up what was to come, but there was no denying that the slow burn was really slow and would have been slower had it not been for the great cast.

But by the time we got to the stock footage of the printing of the newspaper, just something as simple as that but shot with such care and beauty, provided for one of the best transitional scenes in any movie. And that was the brilliance of Spielberg.

My favourite shot was definitely when Streep and Hanks was walking out of the printing room, that was the money shot.