Tuesday, November 2, 2010

State of Play (2009)


A young woman is killed at a subway station. She is an aide to an up and coming senator (Ben Affleck). Former college roommate of the senator and reporter Russell Crowe stumbles upon the story which with the help of a young cub reporter is revealed to be a much bigger deal then was earlier suspected.

Very good political thriller about what seems to be a dying breed, a reporter with a real nose for news. Here we have Crowe diving in after a story and not letting it go even when there seems to be pressure to publish anything from above, even if its wrong or only part of the story. Its the current battle between getting a story NOW and getting the story right. On top of that its a damn fine mystery that isn't as completely clear as you may think it it is. I had heard from a friend that the film was good but too complicated and I feared that the compression of a 6 hour BBC miniseries was going to make the film impenetrable, or a mess, instead I found it easy to follow even if one wandered off to the bathroom.

This is a great little popcorn movie and I really enjoyed myself. Definitely worth a box of popcorn and a soda. Between this and the International its great that Hollywood is once again making good adult thrillers with some intelligence.

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