Amazon/GettyA new Amazon Prime film based on real events looks at the investigation into the CIA’s use of torture against al-Qaida detainees.
The Report follows the story of Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones, played by Star Wars’ Adam Driver, and his boss, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening), who are tasked with looking into the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program which was created after 9/11.
A newly released trailer opens with a voice-over from Daniel explaining he had just started grad school when the attacks took place. After hearing the news, he changed his classes to national security.
Check out the trailer here:
Daniel ends up working in Congress where he is told to investigate a New York Times story claiming the CIA destroyed tapes of the interrogation of al-Qaida detainees.
We learn about one particular detainee who was waterboarded – a technique which mimics the experience of drowning – 183 times, despite the fact everything the man shared was either already known by the CIA or a lie.
Daniel’s determination to find out the truth leads to discoveries which uncover the lengths the intelligence agency went to in order to overthrow the law and hide a major secret from the public. However, as the main character digs deeper, CIA and White House staffers begin to view him as a threat.
AmazonOne character, played by Corey Stoll, tells Daniel ‘they can’t destroy the documents, but they can go after the next best thing: you’.
In the trailer, we see Daniel explain how the use of torture made it impossible to prosecute the detainee because ‘if what [they] did to him ever came out in the court of law, the case [would be] over’.
The trailer comes to an end with the protagonist saying the report was going to come out ‘the right way’, rather than being published in the New York Times.
AmazonJon Hamm, Sarah Goldberg, Michael C. Hall, Douglas Hodge, Fajer Kaisi, Ted Levine, Jennifer Morrison, Tim Blake Nelson, Linda Powell, Matthew Rhys, T. Ryder Smith and Maura Tierney also star in The Report, which was written and directed by Scott Z. Burns.
According to The Atlantic, in real life Jones worked on the investigation for more than six years, sifting through thousands of pages documenting torture, abuses of power and the lack of accountability during the George W. Bush administration.
The investigator discovered the CIA had misrepresented the success of its ‘enhanced-interrogation procedures’ which included placing people in stressful positions, where a great amount of weight is placed on one or two muscles, sleep deprivation and simulated burials, as well as waterboarding.
The Report will be available to stream on Prime Video from November 29.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.