The release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report in 2014 was a compelling episode in American history, detailing as it did the CIA’s use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists and their lack of effectiveness. That doesn’t mean the seven-year investigation that led to the report automatically lends itself to high drama, particularly when one considers that many of those seven years were spent reading sensitive CIA documents in a windowless room. That makes the new movie “The Report” that much more of an accomplishment.

Director and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns had his work cut out for him, constructing a political thriller out of the efforts led by Intelligence Committee staffer Daniel J. Jones. Burns and Jones explained some of thinking that went into the film’s narrative, as well as the issues it explores, in the latest Political Theater podcast with CQ Roll Call senior staff writer Niels Lesniewski and me. 

Burns is no stranger to tackling complicated topics: He has been a producer on “An Inconvenient Truth” and Steven Soderbergh’s “The Laundromat,” for instance. And he knows a thing or two about writing a compelling tale, having been a screenwriter on “The Bourne Ultimatum” and the upcoming James Bond movie “No Time to Die.” And Jones? Asked if he could have imagined that one day Adam Driver, who plays Darth Vader’s grandson Kylo Ren in the Star Wars saga, would one day portray him and his efforts to glean the truth about the intelligence community’s darkest practices, he said, tongue firmly in cheek, that was always part of the plan. 

Show Notes:

• Senate Intelligence Committee in focus on C-SPAN and the big screen this fall
• John McCain and a ‘Unique Moral Perspective’ on Torture
• Negotiations Over CIA Torture Report Nearing End
• John Kerry Warns Feinstein of CIA Torture Report’s Possible Impact on Hostages
• Biden Backs Public Disclosure of Torture Report
• Feinstein Unveils CIA Torture Report
• Torture Report Disappearance Raises Ire of Senate Democrats
• CIA Releases Report Finding Haspel Not at Fault in Destruction of Torture Tapes
• Obama’s Message on CIA Torture Report: Move On
• Obama Should Halt Democrats’ Torture’ Frenzy
• Senate Democrats Press McDonough on CIA Torture Report
• Reviving Torture Under Trump Would Be Tricky but Not Impossible
• Bush-era torture memos cast doubt on human rights nominee’s approval