DVD REVIEW | Serena Donadoni | Rod Lurie loves stubborn women: utterly intractable females who are willing to slash and burn their personal and professional lives for a principle rather than engage in political gamesmanship. This journalist turned filmmaker has created a particularly obdurate representation of his former profession in Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale), a D.C. political newspaper reporter at the fictitious Capitol Sun-Times who's going to print with a career-making, White House-shaking, Pulitzer-taking story that involves the outing of a CIA agent married to a former ambassador critical of the president's administration. On the surface, Nothing But the Truth has that ripped from the headlines quality of a juicy Law & Order episode, but Lurie takes the nuts and bolts of the case of New York Times reporter Judith Miller (jailed when she refused to reveal a source) and the outed operative Valerie Plame (whose husband Joe Wilson was a vocal detractor of the Bush rationale for the Iraq War), and creates two morally certain women who forcefully respond when their core principles are directly challenged by those they trust the most. Rachel's tenacity is equaled by Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga), who becomes openly hostile to her Central Intelligence Agency superiors when her loyalty is questioned after a leak. Nothing But the Truth is most thrilling when it contrasts the responses of Rachel and Erica to the published story: these astute, ambitious women and caring, involved mothers — their precocious kids are classmates — have so much in common, yet they quickly square off over questions of duty and patriotism. With tightly wound intensity and vacillating between ferocity and vulnerability, Vera Farmiga is ripe with righteous indignation. Her Van Doren is the hair-trigger opposite of the real Plame (portrayed by Naomi Watts in 2010's Fair Game), who comes off as cool as a Hitchcock blonde when compared to the feral zeal of Erica. Farmiga is a marvel to watch, but it's difficult to imagine an effective spy having such a thin skin and hair-trigger temper. Lurie (Commander in Chief, Line of Fire) doesn't soft-pedal anything: he wields a sledgehammer to carve out his characters, and frames them in widescreen images that are crisp, precise and uncluttered. But he understands the machinations employed by a politicized intelligence community and a judiciary with formidable powers of coercion, and by filtering his outrage through a keen intellect he avoids Oliver Stone-style bombast and clearly portrays the intricate workings of a Byzantine system all too susceptible to fear mongering. (Matt Dillon is hypnotic as a honey-toned special prosecutor who speaks softly but always has his big stick handy.) Writer/director Rod Lurie saves his harshest barbs for the increasingly fickle media news cycle and Rachel's less than devoted nearest and dearest, who don't fully support an uncompromising reporter who'll shatter her comfortable world in the name of an ideal.
© 2010, Serena Donadoni. All rights reserved.
NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH | 2008
Writer and Director: Rod Lurie | Cinematography: Alik Sakharov | Music: Larry Groupé | Production Design: Eloise Crane Stammerjohn | Costume Design: Lynn Falconer | Editing: Sarah Boyd | Producers: Bob Yari, Marc Frydman and Rod Lurie | Released by Yari Film Group (theatrical) and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (DVD) | Running time: 107 minutes | Rated R
Cast: Kate Beckinsale (Rachel Armstrong), Vera Farmiga (Erica Van Doren), Matt Dillon (Patton Dubois), Alan Alda (Alan Burnside), Floyd Abrams (Judge Hall), Noah Wyle (Avril Aaronson), Angela Bassett (Bonnie Benjamin), David Schwimmer (Ray Armstrong), Preston Bailey (Timmy Armstrong), Jamey Sheridan (Oscar Van Doren), Kristen Bough (Allison Van Doren), Courtney B. Vance (Agent O'Hara), Julie Ann Emery (Agent Boyd), Michael O'Neill (CIA Director), Pamela Jones (Guard Washington), Robert Harvey (Warden), Kristen Shaw (Angel Rabinowitz), Angelica Torn (Molly Meyers), Scott Williamson (President Lyman), and Rod Lurie (Larry).
