Despite its good intentions, The Report is devoid of drama and character

Scott C. Burns's Amazon Prime film, The Report, gives us in detail the true history of the attempt by a team of investigators, led by one Daniel Jones (played be the ubiquitous Adam Driver), under the auspices of California senator Diane Feinstein, investigated reports of secret CIA prisons where American officers, in teh wake of 9/11, tortured suspected terrorists in what was a totally failed attempt to gather intelligence about planned attacks. The team does uncover crucial info - despite CIA attempts to destroy massive amounts of records - then runs into fierce opposition from the CIA and from various senators and administration officials as they attempt to suppress the lengthy investigative report - which finally saw the light after a leak to the NYT and some support from Feinstein and other courageous senators (including our own great R.I. Senator Whitehouse). This film is a noble project and it's good to recognize that American agents could do evil and that the country could recognize this, eventually, and take action to rectify (to a degree). That said, the film is a almost schizophrenic: On the one hand, there are many vivid scenes depicting the various forms of torture inflicted on the prisoners - these are largely unwatchable. The rest of the film consists of extensive and laborious re-creation of Jones's investigation and the obstacles Jones et al. faced; this part - the vast majority - of the film was also unwatchable because it was, well, exceedingly dull. Seldom has so much talent (many all-stars in the cast, including Annette Bening, John Hamm, Michael C. Hall, and others) been brought together w/ so little to show for it: There's one meeting and conversation after another, few or no scenes of any great drama. Driver does the best he can w/ weak material, but the few attempts to build his personality - the young idealist who loses his innocence, the man who becomes obsessed with his mission to the point of losing all contact w/ others and all perspective - go nowhere, as the film is mired in its commitment to document the years of infighting and investigation that led to the final publication of an edited version of the report (which we knew from the outset, of course). Any episode of Homeland is better than this 2-hour slog.