The Report (2019 film)

The Report (styled as The Torture Report) is a 2019 American political drama film written and directed by Scott Z. Burns and starring Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Ted Levine, Michael C. Hall, Tim Blake Nelson, Corey Stoll, Maura Tierney and Jon Hamm. The plot follows staffer Daniel Jones and the Senate Intelligence Committee as they investigate the CIA's use of torture following the September 11 attacks. It covers more than a decade's worth of real-life political intrigue, exploring and compacting Jones's 6,700-page report. It is partly based on the article "Rorschach and Awe" by Katherine Eban which originally appeared in "Vanity Fair".
"The Report" had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States on November 15, 2019 by Amazon Studios, before streaming on Amazon Prime beginning November 29, 2019.
Plot.
Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver), a Senate staffer, is selected by Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) to lead an investigation into the 2005 destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes. Jones' small team of six, which includes April and Julian, begins work in early 2009 reviewing 6 million pages of CIA materials in a windowless office.
The narrative shifts back to the September 11 attacks of 2001, introducing George Tenet (Dominic Fumusa), Bernadette (Maura Tierney) and Gretchen (Joanne Tucker) at the Counterterrorist Center (CTC), anxiously watching live videos of the attacks. At CIA headquarters a few days later, Tenet reports on his meeting at Camp David with President George W. Bush and CTC director Cofer Black. John Rizzo, the CIA's legal counsel, reports that the President had given the CIA powers to "capture and detain suspected terrorists." The next year, intelligence psychologists Bruce Jessen (T. Ryder Smith) and James Elmer Mitchell (Douglas Hodge) are contracted to instruct the CIA in enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs).
Jones meets with FBI agent Ali Soufan (Fajer Al-Kaisi) and learns more about the CIA's interrogation program, particularly regarding Abu Zubaydah. The interrogation of Abu Zubaydah is shown, contrasting the FBI's approach with the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques. Bernadette is present as a witness. Soufan, who speaks both English and Arabic, says they kept Zubaydah alive and gathered crucial intelligence in the days before the CIA took over the interrogations. The CIA disagreed on techniques and results.
Jones briefs Senator Feinstein in her office, providing the evidence from the CIA's own records proving that the CIA knew Zubaydah was not a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda, as they had falsely reported to the Department of Justice (DOJ). After the CIA told President Bush that Zubaydah was a key player, they received authorization in an August 2002 CIA memo to torture Zubaydah, making him the first detainee to be tortured.
Raymond Nathan (Tim Blake Nelson), a physician assistant with the Office of Medical Services, secretly meets with Jones and tells him that he and others had wanted to leave the service because of the use of torture. He witnessed the waterboarding of Zubaydah, who almost drowned and who lost consciousness during the procedure. Nathan tells Jones that they were told by Director Jose Rodriguez (Carlos Gomez) to not put their complaints in writing.
Jones and April uncover the story of Gul Rahman, who died from hypothermia in 2002 after CIA interrogators left him chained to the ground overnight in a 36 °F (2 °C) cell. Jones meets with Feinstein and her staffer Marcy Morris (Linda Powell) to inform them about the CIA Inspector General's report of the incident. Jones also deduces that the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had been told to not inform the President about Office of Legal Counsel staffer John Yoo's 2002 memo containing narrower redefinitions of torture and enhanced interrogation techniques; President Bush only learned about it four years later in April 2006.
Jones finds the Panetta Review, a harshly critical internal CIA review of the EIT practices prepared in 2009 but never shared, among the files provided by the CIA. While watching TV at a bar after work, April, Julian, and Jones become discouraged as they watch a broadcast claiming that torture had yielded good intelligence and prevented terrorist attacks. Jones stays up all night to disprove the media's claims; the CIA's own records show that crucial information it claimed to have obtained by subjecting Khalid Sheikh Mohammad aka "KSM" (Ratnesh Dubey) to torture had already been obtained beforehand.
In another flashback to March 2003, Mitchell and Jessen waterboard Mohammad. Mitchell complains that when tortured, Muhammad lies to avoid more torture. Bernadette, who is witnessing from another room, admits they have a problem. Gretchen decides that the torture will continue.
April announces that she will be taking a new job, discouraged by the lack of support for their research and her concern that the report might never be published. She says that the CIA knew in 1978 that torture did not work but they did it anyway.
In another flashback, in response to the April 21, 2004 address to the United Nations by President Bush, in which he denounced the use of torture, Tenet, Bernadette, Mitchell, Jessen, Thomas Eastman, Jose Rodriguez, and John Rizzo meet to discuss how they would respond. Jack Goldsmith, the OLC's new head, had repudiated and withdrawn the Torture Memos. Mitchell gives an impassioned speech in defense of his methods and Rodriguez has the program re-certified.
Jones finishes the 6,200 page report and the report is approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Feinstein, on December 13, 2012 and sent to the CIA for final comments. However, two months later, John Brennan is sworn in as the new Director of the CIA. Brennan tells Jones and Senator Feinstein that he disagrees with many parts of the report and will not allow it to be published. Jones and Senator Feinstein sit down for a series of meetings with CIA representatives, who raise several objections to key findings in the report, such the fact that the psychologists, Mitchell and Jessen, were unqualified to be offering advice on interrogation techniques, but were nevertheless paid $81 million of taxpayer money for their efforts.
Frustrated, Jones reveals some of the contents of the Panetta Review to Senator Mark Udall (Scott Shepherd) of the Intelligence Committee. Senator Udall confronts Caroline Krass (Jennifer Morrison) during a December 17, 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Krass' nomination to the position of CIA General Counsel, stating that he "was more confident than ever of the accuracy of the committee's 6,300 page study," and was confident in its consistency with the CIA's internal reviews, thereby revealing the existence of the Panetta Review, and highlighting the fact that the CIA's protestations (against the Senate's report) directly contradict the conclusions of the CIA's own internal Panetta Review, which agrees with the report. Meanwhile, Jones, who is fearful that the CIA will attempt to destroy all copies of the Panetta Review like they destroyed the interrogation videotapes, secretly moves a copy of a portion of the review into a safe in the Senate Hart Building.
The CIA, humiliated by Udall's revelation, conducts a search of Jones' workspace in violation of the agreement between the Senate and the CIA and threatens to prosecute Jones for "stealing" the Panetta Review from the CIA's computers. Jones' lawyer, Cyrus Clifford (Corey Stoll), advises him that he does not have a legal problem, but a "sunlight" or transparency problem. Jones meets with a "New York Times" reporter (Matthew Rhys) and suggests he look into the CIA break-in and theft at the Senate Intelligence Committee's closed facilities. Jones is careful to provide the reporter with no details. When the "Times" article is published, Jones is called into a meeting with Morris and Senator Feinstein, who is visibly angry with him, but who ultimately makes a speech supporting him and formally accusing the CIA of unlawfully searching the Senate's computers in violation of the separation of powers. Brennan and the CIA are forced to back down.
Senator Feinstein tells Jones that she is prepared to publish a shorter summary of the report, but President Obama grants the CIA broad authority to redact Jones' report. Jones points out, to no avail, that the CIA's proposed heavy redactions make many of the revelations detailed in the report impossible to read or follow. Faced with unrelenting blocks to the report's publication, Jones meets in an underground parking lot with the "New York Times" national security reporter, but ultimately decides not to leak the report to the media.
The Republicans, most of whom oppose the release of the report, win control of the Senate in the November 2014 midterm elections, meaning the report will likely be buried forever come January 2015, when the new Congress is sworn in. Faced with this deadline, the Senate finally agrees to release the redacted report. Senator Feinstein gives a speech summarizing the report and its implications, which is followed by real-life footage of an impassioned speech in support of the report delivered by Senator John McCain, who was tortured by his captors as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.
Following the release of the report, six years after he began compiling it, Jones leaves his job as a Senate staffer.
Production.
The project was announced in April 2018 with Scott Z. Burns directing and writing, and Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm and Jennifer Morrison signed on to star.
"PBS NewsHour"s Jeffrey Brown asked Burns on his motivation for making the controversial 2014 report on CIA torture into a movie. Both Burns' parents are psychologists and he found it "appalling" to learn from the Senate Intelligence Committee report, that "people had figured out a way to weaponize psychology", a profession that "exists to help people". Burns said that he and the film's producer Steven Soderbergh, felt it reflected well on the United States that the government allowed the report to be published. Soderbergh said that he did not know "that there's another country, other than maybe Canada or the U.K.", that "would have even allowed this kind of investigation."
The film began production on April 16, 2018 in New York with Tim Blake Nelson, Ben McKenzie, Matthew Rhys, Ted Levine and Michael C. Hall added to the cast the following month. In June 2018, Maura Tierney joined the cast. Originally set with a 50-day shooting schedule and $18 million budget, the allotted shooting days were cut to 26 and the final budget to $8 million.
Release.
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2019. Shortly after, Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film. In October 2019, it appeared as a spotlight film at the Hamptons International Film Festival. It was scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on November 15, 2019, before being released on Prime Video two weeks later on November 29. It was previously scheduled for respective September 27 and October 11 releases.
Reception.
Box office.
Unlike its previous titles, Amazon did not publicly disclose theatrical gross of "The Report", leading "IndieWire" to estimate it grossed around $150,000 from 84 theaters in its opening weekend. The site wrote that "the response, so far as we can determine, are under the usual Amazon performance." Playing in just 60 theaters the following weekend, the film made an estimated $75,000.
Critical response.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 81% based on 221 reviews, with an average rating of 7.18/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Report" draws on a dark chapter in American history to offer a sober, gripping account of one public servant's crusade for accountability." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In August 2019, Human Rights First announced that it will award the 2019 Sidney Lumet Award for Integrity in Entertainment to "The Report" at the organization's annual award dinner on October 28 in New York City.