The Report has incredible talent, but buckles under the weight of the message it tries to convey.

The Report, written and directed by Scott Z. Burns and starring Adam Driver, is a dramatic recreation of senate staffer Dan Jones’s years-long research and struggle to compile a 700-page long report to expose the CIA for torturing prisoners.

Dan Jones is an ordinary hero who, while scrubbing through old footage, discovers a clip of a prisoner being tortured. Upon the discovery of this clip, he brings the information to the attention of his boss, the Senator of California, Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening). Disturbed with the information, she tasks Dan with investigating further, which sends him into an obsessive spiral.

At first he has a team of six, three Democrats and three Republicans in a gray, windowless, dimly lit basement in the Pentagon. Most of the film takes place in this dark, depressing, tightly enclosed space, which we can imagine Dan spent most of his days while this report was being written. We see the photos, notes, and lines connecting everything overtake the entire space, showing that this has become his life. No matter how hopeless or frustrating the situation becomes, which there are many, Dan trudges and fights forward.

Adam Driver himself does an excellent job encapsulating the emotions of this person, from his more introverted mannerisms to his anger and frustration that spouts later on in the film. We see a wide range of emotions from Adam in this film, in one scene he can be angry, yet restrained, clenching his fist, the next, yelling, giving a passionate speech about his right to publish the report, or intense focus as he researches. Once again, he never fails to impress.

John Hamm plays the bureaucratic villain in this film, opposing Dan Jones. He plays Denis McDonough, a high up CIA officer who tries his all to stop the publication of the report. Clearly, we are made to hate this character, but Hamm plays the villain very well. Though he comes across as charming and friendly, looks are deceitful as he will do anything to save face.

However, though the talent was fantastic, spending a majority of the film in the Pentagon, either in Feinstein’s office or the grey basement that Dan worked on the report for 7 years, did get a bit boring and tiresome. The other half of the film we spend in flashbacks whenever Dan discovers something new within his research, that is where we see graphic scenes of torture and violence. I understand, Scott wants to show on screen what Dan discovered. The torture and violence was too much, as this was supposed to be Dan’s story, and this feels like a ploy to get the audience emotional and angry over the events that occurred. There are other ways that he could have explained or displayed what had happened without making the audience feel so uncomfortable.

Overall, The Report is a great, informative drama about an everyday hero who spoke up and fought against all odds, though I wish it would focus less on the emotional and political aspects it wishes to evoke and keep it centered on the facts.