Dir. Kevin MacDonald, US/UK, 2009, 127 mins
Cast: Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe, Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams
Review by Carol Allen
If you were one of those who was addicted six years ago to Paul Abbott's excellent television drama series "State of Play", then your heart may well have sunk at the news that it was being turned into a big Hollywood movie. Happily, for once, such fears are unfounded.
Under the beady eye of British production company Working Title, the story has been skilfully reworked into an American setting. The background is now Washington instead of Westminster and elements of the story have been updated but the film stays true in spirit to Abbott's beautifully constructed, multi layered story and characters.
Crowe plays Cal McAffrey, senior reporter on the Washington Globe. When a small time drug dealer is murdered in an alley way on the same day that an ambitious young congressman's chief researcher is killed in a subway accident, Cal is the first to spot the connection between the two events. Stephen Collins (Affleck) is heading up a congressional investigation into a dubious domestic security contractor to the government, which is employing mercenary ex soldiers with sinister implications. It soon emerges that his relationship with the young woman, who was his late researcher, was more personal than professional. As Cal has a history with Collins and his wife (Robyn Wright Penn), which goes back to their college days together, Cal finds himself facing a conflict between his personal loyalties and feelings and his professional drive to get the story. This is exacerbated by the pressure he is under from his editor (Mirren - an appropriate gender change of role from the television original), who is in turn being pressured by the paper's new media conglomerate owners. Cal's co-reporter on the story is novice reporter Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), blogger for the paper's online version - an initially spiky confrontation between traditional and contemporary news styles, which develops into a relationship of mutual respect though fortunately not a romantic one.
The film moves at a brisk pace, keeping up the thriller momentum and the tension through the twists and turns of the plot and its revelations, rather than relying on car chases and such. The most memorable action scene is one where Cal is being stalked in a multi storey car park by the killer. Crowe is convincing as the slobby, old style reporter, reminiscent of the journalist heroes of much older films, McAdams makes a lively sidekick and Affleck is very good indeed as the crusading, charismatic and slightly too smooth congressman with a fatal flaw. There are also some telling supporting performances, notably from Jeff Daniels as a pragmatic senior politician and Jason Bateman as a sleazy public relations fixer, who holds one of the keys to the plot.
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