Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
4/18/09
They don't make 'em like
they used to. This is really bad news in the case of thrillers:
I couldn't tell you exactly when it happened, but I seem to remember it
being the early 90's when we started to hear so much talk about the need
to change the endings of adapted books and pack thrillers with twist after
twist because audiences wouldn't turn out if they had already read or could
guess the ending. I couldn't tell you if State of Play ends
the same way as the BBC miniseries upon which it is based, but I can tell
you that the ending is a self-defeating jumble of surprises that sucks
a lot of the air out of a pretty good newspaper thriller. What remains
is a delivery system for some great, vividly acted characters. Reason
enough to see it, but a far better film would have resulted had the three
credited screenwriters simply told a story rather than kept me guessing.
Reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell
Crowe) is something of a dinosaur in the rapidly changing journalism industry.
He's not afraid to break the law, and takes his time both investigating
and writing, a style that proves to be an asset when a drug dealer and
pizza franchise owner making one of his own deliveres are both found shot
the night before an aide to House Representative Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck)
is hit by a subway train. Police assume the first crime was a routine
drug crime and the second a suicide, but when Cal finds the number of the
aide on the phone of the dealer, he starts digging deeper. He has
reason to: Collins was his college roommate, and the Representative's
wife Anne (Robin Wright Penn) is the One Who Got Away. It's revealed
that Stephen was having an affair, and the resulting scandal is really
good news for PointCorp, a Halliburton-style private military contractor
who's being investigated by Collins' office. With the help of political
blogger Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), Cal follows the evidence to a larger
and larger conspiracy with frightening implications for our Nation.
But it's scandal that sells papers: will their editor (Helen Mirren)
give them a chance to get to the bottom of the mystery?
I'd love to know exactly
how the final 15-odd minutes of State of Play came to be assembled.
There's an ominous set of credits for a crew responsible for “Additional
Photography” that includes no less than Dante Spinotti as Director of Photography
(Rodrigo Prieto did the honors for the movie proper). It just feels
to me as though the movie has come to a logical and satisfying conclusion
and then shoots off onto one of those tangents where previously unhinted-at
evidence emerges and characters meet in a dark room to babble on at length
about how nothing was as it seemed without ever really making sense.
Maybe the ending wasn't tacked-on after reshoots, but it certainly feels
like it was, and its' contradictory nature really hurts the experience.
Yes, all the climactic revelations are reasonable enough (although the
clues that lead to them, not so much), but they take a movie that had a
point of view and a pretty good villain and muddy the waters to the point
where just about everyone proves to have been guilty of something.
And they also deliver us the painfully naive notion that you could present
the public with simultaneous revelations of a major threat to our freedom
and a juicy sex scandal and that anyone would even notice their rights
vanishing out from under them while waiting for Shocking! New!
Photos! of that mistress. Overall, the script has that one great
angle about PointCorp, but keeps throwing other less successful ones on
the pile, including an annoying need to carp on Cal's “real motivation”
for getting the truth out.
Pity too because until it
unravels this is a fine thriller led by some really good performances.
Crowe can be a charismatic leading man in his sleep and doesn't even have
to break a sweat to be awesome. McAdams makes a great foil, her classic
movie star beauty and massive likability making her perfect for an old-fashioned
movie newsroom. Affleck continues his comeback with a strong, confident
performance as the Senator. Wright Penn makes a great weary political
wife and has sharp, lived-in chemistry with Crowe. Mirren doesn't
have much to do but bluster, but she does it well, as Jeff Daniels and
Harry Lennix skillfully inhabit stock Evil Politico and Dedicated Cop roles.
Michael Berresse has some scary moments as an assassin, and Jason Bateman
totally steals the show with a couple pivotal scenes as a loopy publicist
with some pretty big secrets.
State of Play arrives
at a pivotal moment for the newspaper industry, as major papers all over
the country are going out of business. You won't get any argument
from me against the notion that a professional, quality journalistic corps
is necessary to our democracy, but the movie has little of value to say
on the subject other than contempt for bloggers and hushed whispers about
the wonder of a lone man typing The Big Story. It's not a major theme,
but I was kinda irked that the movie lives in a fantasy world where all
that's changed since the 70's is that Mean Corporations and Stupid Bloggers
are trying to take away newspapers Americans are lining up to buy.
State of Play (don't
ask me to explain the title, I have no idea) is sharp enough, long enough
to recommend. It methodically unfolds a wonderfully elegant conspiracy
before getting too smart for its' own good and lets a first-rate cast deliver
the goods. But I left frustrated that it could have been so much
more. Sometimes less is more. |
