Truth review: nowhere near the journalistic thriller it should have been

In September 2004, as the US geared up for a midterm presidential election, the CBS news programme 60 Minutes broadcast a story alleging that President George W Bush had used family influence to gain entry into the Texas Air National Guard, a post that allowed George the Younger to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War.

The producer Mary Mapes had, additionally, uncovered copies of documents exposing Bush’s service – or rather lack of it – in the National Guard. As they were copies, no forensic or typography experts could authenticate the documents, and the entire network soon came under fire.

Mapes' account of the episode, which led to more than one job loss and the resignation of network anchor Dan Rather, formed the spine of her 2005 memoir, Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and the Privilege of Power, which has now been adapted for the big screen by writer-director James Vanderbilt, who scripted Zodiac.

Impressed? Did we mention the film stars Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford?

On paper, at least, Truth ought to have been vying with Spotlight as journalistic thriller of the year. Instead, Vanderbilt's film was (quite rightly) miles away from any awards conversations.

That’s a pity, because Redford is marvellous but even Blanchett can’t do anything with the screenplay’s messy rendition of Mapes, who too often plays like a mushy rom-com heroine in the wine-and-chocolate-guzzling scene before the last-minute airport-dash reunion.

It doesn’t help that the news team around the central character – Quaid, Moss, Grace – don’t serve any real narrative purpose, but instead float around, as if in search of a mystery van.

One suspects, too, that legal issues have hindered the narrative flow. We get a disjointed outburst from Grace about Big News cosying up to Big Government, but it has the feel of a man shaking his fist at a cloud. Pity.