Nothing But The Truth

I was attracted to this movie because I read about Kate Beckinsale good performance, which gave her some nominations in the current award season. Perhaps if I didn’t watch this movie after Leonera, I could have enjoyed it more as this is another women in prison movie… well, sort of. Still, this movie has written allover “commercial cinema” and the true value is basically entertainment.

Writen and directed by Rod Lurie (remember The Contender?) tells about reporter Rachel that writes a Pulitzer worth article about a woman spy (Vera Farmiga) that did a report concluding that Venezuela had nothing to do with the assassination attempt to the USA President and the report was dismissed by the authorities who attacked Venezuela. Rachel (Beckinsale) is the object of a special prosecutor (Matt Dillon) investigation to force her to tell her source, as because new security measures, her source is a traitor for revealing the identity of a CIA agent.

Rachel refuses to tell her source and goes to jail (btw thanks to this film now I know the difference between jail and prison in the USA, he, he). While in jail Beckinsale’s performance becomes interesting but not outstanding or remarkable, so now I understand why it didn’t have more nominations or awards. Anyway Rachel has a son and definitively there are many moments where the narrative plays with the character because she’s an incarcerated woman and a mother.

The movie is fiction, but it is inspired in the real life events of the famous Valerie Plame case and definitively is a story/film that exemplifies the USA Government absolute use (or abuse) of power thanks to the so-called home security safety measures.

Not a masterpiece, but an entertaining movie that could please some audiences that do not expect anything else but what Lurie says: “I tried to make a movie that’s a commercial thriller as well as being something that’s topical”. But if by any case you watch Leonera, I suggest that your next movie definitively should not be this one.

Enjoy.