Dir. Kevin Macdonald, US, 2009, 127 mins
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren
Review by Philippa Bradnock
The original State of Play was a UK mini-series in 2003, and was much lauded for its gritty thriller style and spiralling plot intrigues. This US film adaptation replaces John Simm with Russell Crowe as sleazy journo Cal McCaffery, uncovering corporate misdeeds and political manoeuvrings. The twist remains the same: Cal is a bit too close to the politician in question, and happens to have a thing for his wife. His bloodhound nose tells him something's rotten, but he's not sure if the smell's coming from his friend, and whether he should ignore it or root it out.
State of Play has all the ingredients of the mini-series and is passably tense, but remains un-absorbing. In John Simm we had an ambiguous and attractive lead, but Russell Crowe is hammy and overweight, with a ridiculous haircut which requires him to adopt a fey toss of the head. The film tries to bring in some UK pluck with Mirren as McCaffery's editor, but her irritated huffing and stropping, plus some cringe inducing use of Brit-slang doesn't come off any more convincing. Ben Affleck starts off surprisingly careworn and believable as the congressman at the heart of the scandal, but isn't given much to do and can't quite manage the angry scenes. The script lets everyone down, forcing these apparently slick operators into platitudinous exposition and cliché. All the leads are easily shown up by Jeff Daniels, effortlessly projecting ill-concealed malice, and Jason Bateman (of TV's Arrested Development ), as a flibbertigibbet PR guy involved with the mess.
Part of the problem is in the plot's trans-Atlantic shift. In the UK we think of our politicians as incompetent nincompoops who slack off and fiddle their expenses. Revelations about UK government corruption always have a tinge of the pathetic about them. The idea that a British MP might be involved in a massive and murderous corporate conspiracy is so ludicrous that it made the UK mini-series truly shocking.
The US congress, by contrast, has real glamour and power, and congress-people are afforded respect. Such plots are standard fare for US films, from All the President's Men to Batman Forever . Unfortunately there is little to mark State of Play out from the rest of the genre, despite its cursory updating with ‘war on terror' themes (the corporation provides mercenaries in Iraq ).
The DVD release includes a deleted scenes feature with two extended scenes, which gives some context to the released version but don't add any extra plot detail. It also has a ‘making of' documentary featuring interviews with director Macdonald and others. Macdonald evidently wanted to make more of an overt comment on the state of today's sales-oriented media, and the decline of real investigative journalism. State of Play is technically accomplished and Macdonald is undoubtedly capable of great things; he directed the astonishing Touching the Void , and The Last King of Scotland . Here, however, his ambitions have been hobbled by the dull script and patchy acting. State of Play is an entertaining watch, but not the edge-of-the-seat thriller that one might hope for. |
