REEL NEWS:It's a bit easy to make fun of Sean Penn's political grandstanding, but it seems that his intervention was genuinely helpful in securing the release of two US hikers detained in Iran on espionage charges.

Penn travelled to Venezuela and asked his old pal, President Hugo Chávez, to intervene on the unfortunate travellers' part. El Presidente's deputy foreign minister has confirmed that (ahem) "an American intellectual" chatted to the president about the situation with Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer. Chávez has good relations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, and was, thus, well placed to expedite the release.

Reuters news agency reported: "Penn was very committed to the case . . . He flew to Caracas several months ago to raise it with Chávez and he kept on it."