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Monday, January 8, 2018

The Motion Picture ‘THE POST’ starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. I don’t plan to see it. My thoughts.


There seems to be a lot of generated buzz about the new motion picture, ‘The Post.’  I do like Tom Hanks in almost anything he does, but I just don’t think so – not this time.  I’ll save my nine or ten bucks.

The movie is about, what has come to be called, the Pentagon Papers.  This story was exploding about the time I was becoming a new FBI Agent – 1971.  I had just left military service.

Even the premise for the movie, whether or not the New York Post should publish top secret classified documents misappropriated (stolen) by Daniel Ellsberg (a Vietnam anti-war activist) in their newspaper, is less than factual.  The story regarding the Pentagon Papers was originally published in the New York Times and the New York Times received a Pulitzer Prize for their journalistic efforts.

What were the Pentagon Papers about?  In summary, it documented how the U.S. government, under various Presidents (Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) lied to the American people about motives for the war, military conditions relevant to the war to include personnel losses and mission miscalculations.

Is this a movie review?  No.  That would require me seeing the movie.

I just want to say that said movie is apparently one more creative effort to make a considerable profit; as well as to minimize (perhaps unintentionally), the sacrifices made by our military.

If you watched Ken Burns’ ‘Vietnam’ on PBS, you’ve pretty much heard the whole story.  Yes, many in the military died in vain.  Yes, the government lied to all of us; and many American soldiers, as well as innumerable Vietnamese; died needlessly.  But this does not in any way diminish the courage, sacrifice, honor and bravery of our military personnel who were killed or suffered grievous injuries.  Let’s all remember that.  Does the motion picture community still have to make more money off of this?

Moreover, I don’t particularly want to have to hear how courageous the management at the Washington Post were back then - as depicted by Hanks and Streep.  For ‘gosh sakes,’ the story had already been in the New York Times.

Cliff Hanger:  Will the Post be sued?  Will they have to go to jail?  Nope.  Now you know the ending.  The movie is simply contrived nonsense.


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