State of Play

State of Play

State of Play - Directed by Kevin Macdonald, starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, and Helen Mirren - Rated PG-13

State of Play, based on the BBC series of the same name, is a complicated movie. There are multiple storylines to talk about, so I'll try to stick to the main two: a lead researcher for a congressional sub-committee threatening a major private military contractor is killed, bringing forth the information that the Congressman who appointed her (Affleck), was having an affair with her. This leads to questions about who might have killed her, was it suicide?, how connected is this military contractor corproration?, and (the second plotline) where do newspapers fit into all of this in the internet age? That second plotline brings in Cal (Crowe, still in his "look how unkempt I am" phase), Della (McAdams), and their mouthy British editor (Mirren). Cal is an old college buddy of the Congressman, so he has a personal interest in the story, or police case, depending on your perspective. To complicate matters further, he has to work with the young Della, the newspaper's blogger.


When Crowe and McAdams are sharing the screen early on (they work great together, by the way), there is usually a tension in the air as the old dinosaur Cal, still using a 13 year old computer and sticking to the old reporting style of getting away from the computer and hitting the streets, clashes with Della, the neat and tidy young reporter who is able to submit new material every hour from her safe computer. There is only slight tension, though, as the movie wisely decides to make their arguments short and relatively tame. The whole issue of whether or not newspapers are still relevant is interesting and it works as a subplot. But the real meat of the story is Congressman Stephen Collins and his battle to take down Pointcorp (the privatized military contractor) and Cal's quest to find the killer and figure out who's really pulling all the strings, all while trying to be a reporter and a friend at the same time (hint: this leads to scenes of Crowe and Affleck yelling at each other).



Does any of that above make sense? I could go on and make it worse, but if any of the synopsis above sounds interesting to you, then this is definitely worth checking out. There's a bit of style in the camera movement that makes things a bit more hectic (in a good way) and Affleck (who gets a bad rap these days) holds up well against Crowe. This movie isn't a masterpiece or anything, but it's one of those good, complicated investigative reporting movies that has a timely question concerning how news is spread today. And most importantly, it's fun to watch. There's some comedic relief here and there (Jason Bateman shines in his brief role) and the story seems realistic, but still stretches reality enough to make it much more interesting than any true story. So that's it for State of Play, but I do have one more paragraph in me concerning the newspaper vs. internet debate.

For the record, even though I write my reviews on a blog, I think that newsprint is still extremely important. A newspaper offers legitimacy to a story and when I do write an occasional review for the Perry County News I feel a bit more professional than I do when I upload a new post here. The words are usually the same, and if anything, my reviews on the internet are of higher quality (I add pictures!), but the paper is something I can pick up and feel. I think along the same lines when I read the newspaper every day. The important news is printed and you know it's from a reliable source if it's in the paper. If you read an article on some random website, how can you be sure if any of it's true? You could always check the newspaper and see if it's in there.

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

State Of Play

Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren
Drama, 2009

The apparent murder of a politician's research assistant sets off a string of events and other deaths that reveal a plot my a private military company to take control of government based intelligence operations. In a newspaper reporter's search to find the truth he discovers things he didn't know about his good friend and politician Stephen Collins (Affleck).

• This movie really held my attention with a good story line, good acting, and a little bit of action thrown in.
• I have a hard time keeping up with overly intricate plots and characters but I did OK with this one.

4 Stars

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Just Me

Last updated: 2010-03-13 22:58:21 by user05

state of play

it don’t suck that bad.  it’s actually pretty good.  mostly the actors were better than the plot line.  i had given up on the big twist i was waiting for and started to think to myself that this flick wasn’t half bad with that twist missing.  then they hit me with.

it’s like they filmed the whole thing and right before it’s released someone screens the film and says, i think we should put that plot twist in now.  i just scribbled it out on my napkin.  it’s a bad spot for it and we knew it was coming all the time.  it’s not as dissapointing but imagine watching four hours of jodi foster in contact only to be let down when the alien looks like her father.

but not near that bad.  no jodi foster.

i think i’ve lost my train of thought…anywho, the actors all do a pretty good job.  i hate ben afflack, not as much as i hate nicholas cage, but i hate ben afflack.  and he’s quite good here.  sometimes when you put a couple of big ticket actors together it’s almost like they compete too hard, and try to hard to out act the other guy.  but i find ben afflack often acts up to his competition.  and he does in this.

russell crow gets back to being russell crow.  i thougth he sucked in body of lies.  but body of lies really sucked from all angles so i can’t hold that against him.  he’s a damn fine actor.

rachel mcadams is about as cute as they come.  and she more than holds her own with these big boys of hollywood star power.

helen mirren is delightful as always.  she plays russell crow’s editor in chief.

it’s based on an BBC original series which i might download and watch.  might be interesting.

i’ll prob not purchase this disc unless i’m trying to hook up with a chick that really digs russell crow and or ben afflack.  in that case, i’d totally get it out of the three for twenty rack at blockbuster.

Cal Reed

State of Play

Foremost among the many stupid things pretending to be smart in "State of Play" is the title. I have to assume the phrase is well-known in British society, from whence this project originated, but to the average American (like this one) the phrase is opaque. I sort of get the double entendre -- "state" could refer to the government -- but I don't get the topmost layer.

Which describes my feelings about the story. I get that it's supposed to be a story about the tense intersection between journalism and politics, but what actually HAPPENS in the story is hard to pin down.

You see, there's this bad guy security corporation called Pointcore, which has apparently killed a young woman who was having an affair with congressman Ben Affleck. The story is investigated by journalist Russel Crowe, who seeks to protect his former friend, the aforementioned Affleck, and take down Pointcore.

Unfortunately the plot quickly descends into twist hell, where nothing is what it seems, and even if it were it wouldn't matter because you didn't understand it very well when it WAS what it seemed.

Most of the question marks involve what the bad guys are doing and why. Jason Bateman plays an archly humorous high-class pimp who ends up spilling his guts to Russell Crowe for plot convenience reasons instead of legitimate self-interest. Michael Berresse plays a ruthless assassin who loses his chance to kill Russell Crowe because he's too busy doing laundry. (Not an exaggeration.) Jeff Daniels plays a senior congressman so wicked and venal he nearly cries out for "Deep-lo-matic im-yoooooo-nity" in a South African accent.

None of it adds up to anything in the end, as (spoiler alert) Pointcore is exonerated, which makes no sense given their villainous behavior to this point, and blame for the murder falls to that laundry-loving assassin Michael Berresse who, it turns out, is crazy.

Arrrrrrggggghhhhh!

Stupid? Check. Pointless? Check. Ridiculous waste of time with a cop-out ending? Annnnnnnd... check.

These qualities are reminiscent of recent movies "Duplicity" and "Michael Clayton," which, strangely, were also penned by screenwriter Tony Gilroy.

To his credit, Gilroy also wrote the excellent Bourne movies, but when he goes bad he goes really bad.

"State of Play" is just not smart enough to be what it aspires to be, a timely political thriller a la "Charlie Wilson's War." That movie was full of genial insight into the ironies and nuances involved in the effort to motivate a bureaucracy as large as the United States Federal Government, whereas "State of Play" seems impressed with itself because it knows what a blogger is. In fact, whenever a character uses the word "blogger" you can almost hear the quotation marks. Ditto for "internet."

I haven't even mentioned any of the subplots because mathematicians haven't found a number large enough to encompass them, but if they did, there would be too many subplots in this movie by precisely that number.

The director is Kevin MacDonald, whom I have to blame for the disastrous performances from otherwise good actors Helen Mirren and Rachel McAdams. Even Affleck isn't supposed to be this bad. Crowe survives on sheer charisma.

I'm going to give this movie an 18, but I'd like to give it an "N" for sheer and utter nonsense.


SCORE:

How Accomplished: 18/100

How Much I Enjoyed: 18/100

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State of Play

Clark Kent wouldn’t have blogged. Damon Runyon wouldn’t have had a website. Why? Because there’s no romance in on-line journalism. The newsroom is romantic. Cigarettes and type-writers are romantic.Journalism is romantic. But not on-line news. The very act of sitting alone at a keyboard is an anathema to journalism. Reporters need to be out in the world, chain-smoking, nursing a hangover, living dangerously. Even a so-so reporter-movie like State of Play still makes reporting look like a great institution. And the idea we might lose newspapers to blogs is soul-destroying. The world needs hacks, not stay-at-homes.

As the cops shuffle around a murder scene wishing they were in a cop movie, reporter Russell Crowe arrives to start picking at a mystery. A drug-addict has been shot, but so too has a pizza delivery guy. That same morning, a hot-bodied congressional aid jumps in front of a train. Crowe doesn’t know there’s a connection, but he does know the congressman the hot-bodied aid had been aiding. Turns out, the congressman was investigating military out-sourcing. Could the aid have been pushed in front of that train? With a deadline bearing down and the body-count rising, Crowe determines to solve the crime, write the story and screw The Drudge Report.

Ever since Russell Crowe entered his fat period, there have been times when his waistline didn’t match his role. As a nightstick-tough cop inAmerican Gangster, you could be forgiven for thinking he’d been hogging the doughnuts. But in State of Play, the belly feels right. Reporters are meant to eat crap and scowl at gymnasiums. Crowe’s slovenly, hobbit-y, three-days-without-a-shower look fits right in with the D.C. newsroom milieu. And he acts well in this movie, whether squabbling with Helen Mirren or blowing his chances of a shag from Robin Wright Penn. He’s right at home as a man who’s smarter than everyone, but too stuck in his ways to rule the world. You never quite buy that he’d be friends with Ben Affleck, but it’s fun watching Affleck sweat as Crowe gobbles up their scenes.

No man ever got shit on worse than Affleck. And while he deserved it after… his career, he’s a good man in spite of Pearl Harbour, so he also deserves a second chance. Yes, he still acts like Action Man and there’s a discrepancy between his lantern jaw and convincing you as a human being. But State of Play casts him for his Boy Scout qualities and he has at least one great moment where he learns about a hidden pregnancy. When dismay hits him it’s like watching a fencepost splinter.

Of course, Russell Crowe isn’t alone in his investigations. Rachel McAdams has returned from Ryan Gosling’s basement (or wherever she’s been) to play Crowe’s sidekick. McAdams was the girl with the world at her feet after The Notebook, but she didn’t seem to want to act after Wedding Crashers. If you don’t remember her: think of the kind of girl who’d have been back at H.Q. in a WWII movie and wrap her in American Apparel – that’s Adams. Every time she’s on screen you picture David Niven offering her a cigarette. She’s a little young for Crowe’s love interest in State of Play, but you can see he’d take a shower for her.

State of Play isn’t going to save the newspaper business. It isn’t going to spark a trend for verbose thrillers either. The movie is too comfortable being “well-crafted” to make anyone’s heart dance. But it does talk about something important. If newspapers die out, it isn’t just whisky and cigarette manufacturers who will suffer, it’s all of us. Blogs can’t substitute for journalism. Reporters – magnificent bastards one and all – need newsrooms, and bars, and abortive affairs with their colleagues to function. They need other reporters, in short. Blogging is too solitary – too sanitary – for reporters. Real news is written by guys who do more than write.

STATE OF PLAY (2009)

BOTTOM LINE: “State Of Play” is a fairly pedestrian espionage thriller with a great cast that sets up a potentially fascinating government conspiracy plot but descends in to one too many predictable twists before an unsatisfying and untidy conclusion.

THE GOOD: Director Kevin Macdonald has used “State Of Play” to go back to a more old-fashioned style of thriller that is rarely seen these days. The premise of two different murders coming together to unravel a plot involving the privatisation of the defence industry in America is certainly a unique take on the usual US government political thriller story, particularly with its hinted connections towards terrorism in the 21st century. Macdonald has assembled a first rate cast, led from the front by a more sedated Russell Crowe who plays journalist Cal McAffrey. He is friends with Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) and before long, these two old friends find themselves embroiled in a situation bigger than they could imagine with a private defence firm looking to secure its interests by trying to get Collins to stop his attack on those interests. The story unravels slowly, and director Macdonald attempts to lay all the pieces out like a jig-saw puzzle and at times makes for some compelling drama. A sequence where McAffrey inadvertently find himself at the home of the main killer is very tense, as is his subsequent escape. Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn round out the cast perfectly, making the film intriguing enough to sit through and find out exactly what is going on.

THE BAD: “State of Play” never hits the ball out of the park. The execution is pedestrian in nature, and as such, never really plays itself out to be the political thriller it could have been. As a result, the twists in the story become a little predictable; even if you cannot guess what the next twist will be you get the sense that one is coming, particularly in the climax when the Collins character reveals himself to be something entirely different to what we would have expected. The untidy nature of the ending also leaves a lot to be desired. The film carefully puts all these pieces of the puzzle together establishing links between the private defence firm and its attempts to control contracts for domestic security, even to the point of being quite clear, but then muddles the whole thing but introducing a twist that is in itself clear but does not do much to explain how it fits in to the rest of the plot. If anything, it almost raises inherent contradictions in the motives of the bad guys and does not seem to make sense. At any rate, the actors make the effort to make this all work and the film does have its moments despite being let down by an untidy conclusion.

RATING: 6/10

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Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

State of Play

Last updated: 2010-01-18 14:30:55 by malikaziz