State of Play Is Crowe's Show

The 6 hour story lost luster when only 1/3 is shown

Based off the critically acclaimed 6-part BBC mini-series, this 127 minute film tries to condense all 6 hours of the original without losing too much of the juicy parts. It is directed by Kevin Macdonald (Last King of Scotland) and written by Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom), Tony Gilroy (Duplicity), Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon), and Billy Ray (Hart’s War).

The film tells of a journalist's probe into the suspicious death of a Congressman's mistress. Russell Crowe (Gladiator) plays the journalist and Ben Affleck (Smokin’ Aces) plays the Congressman. Support comes from Helen Mirren (The Queen), Jason Bateman (Hancock), Robin Wright Penn (Beowulf), Rachel McAdams (Red Eye), and Jeff Daniels (Traitor).

State of Play breaks no barriers or shows us anything new that a political thriller hasn’t already, but that isn’t to say it’s not a good story. Love affairs, politics and corrupt politicians, private corporations posturing for more money and power, and the media and their relationship with politicians seem to be the main themes presented throughout the film.

The film uses dialogue to move the story, it evens becomes to dialogue heavy at times, really slowing down the film. Although the film seems to go through stages, by pacing a slow build up, kicking it into high gear, then dropping the intensity below where we started only to leisurely work our way back to the top gear, rounding out the film on a supposed “shock” ending that could be perceived from more than a mile away.

Crowe’s character was so laid back and casual it was hard to believe he was an investigative reporter and the only people that gave him information were even more casual about their lives or their jobs than he was. Aside from that character flaw, Crowe carries the film with his charisma and marvellous acting.

On the other hand, Affleck had plenty to work with, but wasn’t that credible as a politician. Many times I have heard that Affleck can’t act, this film finally showed me how those people were correct, aside from his ability to change the emotion on his face from happy at one point to emotionally torn at the next, he was not anything other a stand in. McAdams character, Della, has absolutely no back story other than a hint of a possible boyfriend, but she was very convincing as a modern day blogger that has the tenacity to become an investigative reporter. Some of the supporting cast is superb, Helen Mirren and Jason Batemen light up the screen with what little time they have, while Jeff Daniels and Robin Wright Penn give mild and sometimes unimpressive performances. Many characters were introduced throughout the film, to the point where it is becoming confusing and the filmmakers thought it was unnecessary to give them all a slight back story.

A few scenes of the film seem to be shot out of context, some of these scenes were jarring and were shot in a completely different perspective for no reason other than to demonstrate that a camera can be in that position.

An interesting part of the film was the use of the Washington Globe to the effect of showing how a newsroom seems to work. They even presented how a paper is produced during the credits of the film. It was never explained why, but throughout the film we see many shots of helicopters in flight or hear the beating of the wings in the background, the rationale behind it doesn’t defies logic. The movie was fun at times, but dragged and has some moments where you want to groan, I wouldn’t say skip the movie completely, just wait until it becomes available on DVD.

2 out of 5
Colin Enquist