State of Play, 2009

Finally someone outside the industry understands the importance of newspapers and getting the full story. That's really what State of Play is about, and it comes at the perfect time. Now, I hope everyone will see it. I would like to watch it again with my journalism professors from school, and I would like to talk about it. Cal (Russell Crowe) is a Capitol Hill beat writer for the Washington Globe. A woman dies in a metro accident. She is the lead investigator for Congressman Collins' (Ben Affleck) research committee against a corporation that finances American wars. Her death raises suspicions and Cal wants to uncover the truth. He must work against his editor, Cameron (Helen Mirren), who wants stories immediately since the bloggers are running with the scandal. Cal contests the bloggers don’t have all the facts yet and it’s not real news. One of these bloggers is Della (Rachel McAdams), a young, internet-savvy hotshot colleague. Cal serves as her guide through the uncovering of corruption, greed, slander and murders. She eventually learns why people need to read reporters before they read bloggers. Everyone knows newspapers are struggling. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is only publishing online content. Nearly every newspaper, if it hasn't already folded, has gone through furloughs and layoffs. State of Play sheds a very positive light on the industry before it is too late. It's just a question of whether people will listen. Forget the overall plot of this film and focus on what it's really saying. Yes, it succeeds as a thriller and yes, it's an entertaining premise that is paced well. But on the whole, this is a commentary on the state of journalism. Thank you writers Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray. tinyurl.com/cu6t4s

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I had fairly low expectations for this film considering it's a 2-hour Americanized condensation of a cracking great BBC miniseries, and my general sense of cynicism about how such projects usually turn out. So it's no faint praise to say this remake is much better than I thought it would be. In fact I probably would have given it 4 stars had I not seen and been mightily impressed (5 stars) by said miniseries...but I had, so I couldn't. Certain elements of plot and character were shifted so as to streamline the story and emphasize a more broad and specifically American political statement. Unfortunately, it seems that in the course of streamlining things the filmmakers opted to sacrifice the complex character development and finely drawn personal relationships which helped make the original series so compelling. As far as the acting, well, Helen Mirren is superb as always, but Russell Crowe comes across as little more than disheveled and drab. I found myself constantly comparing his Cal McCaffrey to John Simm's, and it it was as if Crowe had turned off the switch to the electric core of McCaffrey's nature. Jason Bateman's performance deserves special mention though, and he is absolutely riveting in his choppily edited 10 minutes of screen time. All that being said, there's plenty here to hold your interest and make you think, especially if you haven't seen the BBC original (do it now!), so it's definitely worth the watch.

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