The Contender director Rod Lurie delivers another ripped-from-the-headlines drama full of well-meaning political points that all come printed in big bold type. The Valerie Plame affair serves as the basis for this tale of Rachel Armstrong (Beckinsale), an intrepid reporter and Judith Miller stand-in who writes a story that outs an ambassador’s wife (Vera Farmiga) as a CIA operative. Matt Dillon plays the special prosecutor who pressures her into revealing her source by putting Rachel’s “Vassar ass” in the slammer. However passionate Lurie may be about the need to defend First Amendment rights and question government power, Nothing But the Truth is rarely involving, the true details of the case being variously simplified and sexed up to curiously un-dramatic effect. The last-minute revelation of the source’s identity also seriously undermines the film’s noble stance. The one saving grace is Alan Alda’s marvelous turn as Rachel’s silver-tongued lawyer, a character whose flashes of cynical wit seem all the more vivid given their militantly drab and earnest context. 

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