Truth

One year after the Gary Webb biopic Kill the Messenger, here comes another preachy, pandering, ripped-from-the-headlines story of old-guard journalists persecuted by the federal government for their doggedness, dammit. Solemn and walnut-stained as though being fitted for a mantle, Truth is more concerned with delivering a finger-pointing, tongue-clucking civics lesson than with anything resembling journalism. Prolific screenwriter James Vanderbilt makes his directorial debut with this draggy and self-righteous look at the 2004 scandal that ended the careers of CBS anchorman Dan Rather (Robert Redford) and producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett). It's a worn-out cliché, but Truth feels like a screenwriter's first film, as Vanderbilt tends to favor windy sermons and bullet-point conversations over visual concision and formal intellect. Vanderbilt tries to show us the TV news reporting process from inside the fishbowl, but he doesn't so much walk us through the world as talk and talk and talk us through it. D.B.