I felt such an idiot in the end! The idea of the story was good, the reason for not revealing the source... I can understand that.. but...That's not a source! All these bad things happened to her family, for what? For something a kid said? A kid? Really? I think she could avoid all that if she would say"OK I heard that from your kid". The end. No court, no death, no revealing the source "matter".. no nothing. The whole movie happened for nothing. Is there something I miss and don't understand?

I saw this for a night of kicking back with spy movie machinations where a narrator finds himself hapless in the face of secret agencies, the overlap of manipulable stories controlled from afar. It's exactly this; a narrator has just unveiled a story of intrigue, a newspaper story that is expected to shake the system to its core, inspire self- examination. She's willing to go to prison to uphold principles of revealing truth, jeopardize family.Those were the Bush years. The film disguises Iraq for Venezuela and 9/11 for an assassination attempt on the president as pretext for invasion, but the gist is the same; higher-ups lied to people, fabricated a story to odious ends abroad, willing to suppress freedom for security at home.We're meant to see how the system isn't shook and blithely goes on, how every tool is used to break her in the name of security. She comes out on the other end having protected her source, upheld principle, but at huge personal cost to no change. It's meant to be a bleak look. But it's all marred for my taste by the fact that it never rises above obvious movie-isms like having her husband strike an affair so we'll have added micro drama about choices. This isn't about what might happen of course, but what you decide did in the course of creating persons and giving rise to world. A marriage can be frayed without having it come down to he found someone else. It's the difference between plucking clean synthetic sounds on a computer and going out to to find them.

This review does contain spoilers, and that is in order to discuss the much debated ending of this movie. This is surely among the better Crime thriller movies out there, featuring some well executed performances from Kate Beckinsale and Matt Dillon, as well as good, strong dialogue, and most importantly, a question on the nature and morality of the relationship shared by the governments and the press, and the conflicts that arise out of them. So with fine acting, dialogue and a good story, this is film well worth the price of entry. Now, onto the ending. Spoiler ahead. So, in the end, after keeping the identity of the source a secret from us throughout, without having given away any hints, we are finally shown that Rachel first learned of Erica's true identity from Erica's daughter. I was quite honestly blown away by that revelation, and found it a very hair-rising ending. Some people claim this ending ruined an otherwise good movie, but in fact I think it raised it from being generic Hollywood fare. Up until that point it was clearly and firmly portrayed that Rachel very strongly stood by her principles and was determined to keep the identity of her source a secret in order to protect and safeguard her own integrity as well as the very profession of journalism. She, and her 'principle' were wonderfully glorified by the speech that Burnside allays at the Supreme Court. All this build up to glorify Rachel and her actions to stand by her principle are brought crashing down, with that revelation that she blatantly took advantage of the little girls naivety for personal gain and fame. She launched an attack on a matter of national security based merely on the honest, unwitting words of a toddler. The ending in fact reveals that Rachel isn't so much a woman of principle but instead a vile and repulsive human being who will go to any lengths to ensure her own professional gain. The reason she would never reveal the source of her information is simply because it was OUTRAGEOUS. It would definitely have tarnished her reputation as a now Pulitzer-nominated journalist and all the integrity and 'righteousness' that she had seemed to stand for would be for nothing. It all comes down to her belief that she'd rather have her life fall apart without anyone knowing that she had based something of such gargantuan national and international impact, on the meandering thoughts of an innocent toddler than have her life restored at the expense of revealing hher sick secret to the world. It is important to remember that she isn't weighing her political or legal options while deciding to keep her source a secret, but instead is herself so appalled at her methods of having procured the information that she'd rather go to jail and have people register her 'professionalism'. If she wouldn't reveal her source public perception of her while disputed, will undoubtedly oscillate from respect for her sacrifice in the name of upholding her integrity to confused apathy for ruining so many lives including her own at the cost of not disclosing one individual's name , but if she did disclose it there wouldn't even be a debate, her actions would be unanimously desecrated and her ethics and morals will be ridiculed. That is her line of thought, I believe. She is misguided in her thinking that she can still get back to living as close to a life as she used to lead, after completing her 2 year term. I see the ending in this light, and this makes the movie potent. But then again, I do agree that some questions can yet be raised about Rachel's actions, but I believe this is the what the ending was meant to convey. Overall, a good movie; entertaining and well executed.

I consider myself to be a harsh movie critic especially when it comes to endings. The ending to this movie sucked. You spend all that time watching and sitting on the edge of your seat and for what? You already knew everything there was to know in the first hour and by the end of the movie nothing had changed other than the revelation of her source. After the first hour or so I began to think that the source was on their death bed when they told her their story but no it was a their own daughter. She looses everything within the first hour and for what? Just to rub it in her face at the very end? Seriously, one of the last scenes is her pretty much telling her son good bye cause she's settling for prison for the next 2 years and the source and the end. This movie was everything BUT the truth. This woman ruined lives all around her and there is NOTHING entertaining about it!