COVER-UP

(director/writer: Mark Obenhaus/Laura Poitras; cinematographer: Mia Cioffi Henry; editors: Laura Poitras/Peter Bowman/Amy Foote; music: Maya Shenfeld; cast: Seymour Hersh; Runtime: 117; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Olivia Streisand, Yoni Golijov, Mark Obenhaus, Laura Poitras; Praxis Films/Plan B; 2025-in English, Vietnamese, Arabic)“

“Sensitive bio-pic documentary.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Mark Obenhaus (“Steep”/”Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera) and Laura Poitras (“All The Beauty And The Bloodshed”/”Terror Contagion”) superbly co-direct the sensitive bio-pic documentary on the noted, feisty and likable truth telling and Yiddish speaking 88-year-old irascible investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. The Chicago native, the son of a dry cleaner store owner, the outsider who covered the news in his long career from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in the late 1960s to the Abu Ghraib prison controversy during the early part of this century, and in between covered the Civil Rights protests, Watergate and the Iraq War. He still publishes, on a limited basis, for Substack. 

Hersh dedicated himself to reporting on the truth, especially on state crimes against humanity. In 1970, he won the Pulitzer Prize.

The film has a great soundbite on tape of President Nixon calling him a “Son of a bitch.”

What you get here is seeing his ‘digging for the truth’ work ethic, as he covers the kind of investigating reporting not usually seen these days despite the need for it.

It played at the Venice Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 9/9/2025  GRADE: B+
dennisschwartzreviews.com