How a man made war secrets front-page news

With the prospects for war seemingly growing stronger by the hour, the Vietnam-era story of one of the most prominent whistle-blowers in American history arrives Sunday in a two-hour movie, “The Pentagon Papers” (8 p.m. on FX).

James Spader stars as Daniel Ellsberg, whose positions with the Rand Corp. think tank and the Defense Department led to his possession of a 7,000-page, top-secret government report that told a very different version of the war in Southeast Asia than the one that was being fed the American people. And when Ellsberg -- a onetime hawk turned dovish by the report’s revelations -- decides to leak the 46-volume document to the media, he is forced to go underground to elude the FBI manhunt.

Spader, whose haunted eyes, brooding charisma and formidable repertoire of nervous tics have served him well since his breakthrough role in “sex, lies, and videotape,” is a canny choice to play Ellsberg. He’s a bit off-balance in some early scenes in which his flailing gestures and machine-gun delivery are more distracting than affecting, but once his character is on the run, he’s in familiar territory, and the movie picks up speed as well.

Paul Giamatti does his usual solid job as Ellsberg’s wild-haired peacenik pal Anthony Russo, and Alan Arkin does likewise as Rand boss Harry Rowen. Claire Forlani provides some serious sizzle as Washington socialite Patricia Marx, whose budding romance with Ellsberg allows the tense plot a breather or two in some love scenes replete with gauzy camera work and tinkling mood piano. But inevitably it’s back to the Xerox machine to run off more copies of those Pentagon Papers.

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