The movie faded to black. The credits rolled. Ben Asher, a junior television, radio and film major, whirled around in his seat. He and two other students, Stephanie Levine and Jillian Liese, dived into conversation.

The three Syracuse television, radio and film majors, plus a packed Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium, watched an advance screening of ‘Nothing but the Truth’ Thursday night. Moviegoers were even having trouble finding a seat in the overflow room next door.

The film, directed and written by Rod Lurie (‘The Contender,’ ‘Resurrecting the Champ’), pulls the audience into the world of Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale), a reporter who goes to jail for more than three years in order to protect the identity of her sources. She hires lawyer, Albert Burnside (Alan Alda), to protect her right to keep her sources confidential.

‘I thought it was very well shot and written,’ Asher said. Asher isn’t big on ‘talking’ movies – films that are dialogue-driven with extensive character interaction – like ‘Syriana,’ he said.

‘It still kept my attention,’ Asher said of the film. ‘It had a pretty real feel to it – a little rough at the end.’

Levine wasn’t impressed with the ending, either. Lurie told the crowd during the question-and-answer session following the screening that he wrote the ending first. It was too obvious that Lurie wrote the movie out of order, Levine said.

Lurie and Alda chatted with the audience after the screening, and both seemed amiable and personable. One audience member asked Alda if he would be willing to risk it all and protect a source like Beckinsale’s character did in the film.

‘Go to jail – are you crazy? I didn’t even like the army,’ Alda joked.

Both discussed the movie’s overtly political tones and the mixed portrayal of journalists.

‘Every journalist is seen as having an agenda (now),’ Lurie said.His parting remarks to the crowd – of which S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications students made up a large part – set the burden of changing the face of journalism on the students’ shoulders.

‘For those of you entering the journalism field, you have my congratulations,’ Lurie said. ‘Now go and fix it.’

adbrow03@syr.edu

Published on November 2, 2008 at 12:00 pm