I had heard State of Play, from a number of critics, would be one of those movies that started out good, had a strong first half, and then started turning predictable and whatnot in the 2nd. Turns out it's not quite like that. State of Play is consistently good, has gripping parts and some very good performances, until it suddenly undoes its own highly cooked conspiracy-thriller intentions for one of those twist-endings that takes things back a notch. And it's not a good twist- not so much because of how the scene is written, the final confrontation between the characters, but because it deflates the rest of the paranoid drama and suspense that's been building up to it.
State of Play is not without some other curious things to it, such as Russell Crowe playing the grizzled old veteran reporter who may also have the kind of skills that should make him Sherlock Holmes's understudy - or competition. In the film his character practically makes the police obsolete as he takes it upon himself to investigate what is behind the suicide(?) of an assistant to the congressman played by Ben Affleck who is also an old college roommate of his. Rachel McAdams' character has to keep up at times, breathlessly and sometimes with protest, with Cal's methods of inquiry and extracting info.
And yet, I could buy into a lot of it, partly because of Crowe's performance, as usual with some good gravitas and weight and with the measure of experience he's had as an actor. and partly because it keeps the suspense and the will-he-or-won't-he aspect of the deadline for the paper. Up until those final ten minutes when that twist (not to spoil too much but it is a Keyser Soze bit as other critics have inferred), the filmmakers keep us interested in the events because of us being so invested with Crowe and McAdams tracking down a case that balloons to include defense contractors, the media, and lord knows what else.
Again, performances make the difference, and at the least State of Play's director (of Last Kind of Scotland fame) knows how to corral right actors for just the right parts. He gets Crowe and McAdams well paired, and Helen Mirren as the headstrong but lenient editor in chief, and especially from Affleck who can bring on a sense of truth even when he's lying to our faces- perfect for a politician. Jason Bateman, by the way, steals his scenes as a PR guy who talks and talks big and flamboyantly until he has to crack under pressure. Even the guy who played the undercover black-op style killer was perfectly cast.
The big problem then, aside from the twist ending, is that everything in the film, for all of its fine moments of storytelling, does feel the crunch of being adapted from a 5 hour mini-series. While not seen by me, I can tell that there is likely more room for subject matter to breathe, for the audience to digest a lot of this information. As with Watchmen, what they cut out probably worked for the feature film, but only up to a point. As in any story, in journalism or film, the details do stack up. All of the (very) impressive tricks with having cameras in the scenes shooting from far away and at different and opposing angles meant to create tension can't quite surmount this crunch. It's a good film that at times tries a little too much to be more important that it is.
State of Play is not without some other curious things to it, such as Russell Crowe playing the grizzled old veteran reporter who may also have the kind of skills that should make him Sherlock Holmes's understudy - or competition. In the film his character practically makes the police obsolete as he takes it upon himself to investigate what is behind the suicide(?) of an assistant to the congressman played by Ben Affleck who is also an old college roommate of his. Rachel McAdams' character has to keep up at times, breathlessly and sometimes with protest, with Cal's methods of inquiry and extracting info.
And yet, I could buy into a lot of it, partly because of Crowe's performance, as usual with some good gravitas and weight and with the measure of experience he's had as an actor. and partly because it keeps the suspense and the will-he-or-won't-he aspect of the deadline for the paper. Up until those final ten minutes when that twist (not to spoil too much but it is a Keyser Soze bit as other critics have inferred), the filmmakers keep us interested in the events because of us being so invested with Crowe and McAdams tracking down a case that balloons to include defense contractors, the media, and lord knows what else.
Again, performances make the difference, and at the least State of Play's director (of Last Kind of Scotland fame) knows how to corral right actors for just the right parts. He gets Crowe and McAdams well paired, and Helen Mirren as the headstrong but lenient editor in chief, and especially from Affleck who can bring on a sense of truth even when he's lying to our faces- perfect for a politician. Jason Bateman, by the way, steals his scenes as a PR guy who talks and talks big and flamboyantly until he has to crack under pressure. Even the guy who played the undercover black-op style killer was perfectly cast.
The big problem then, aside from the twist ending, is that everything in the film, for all of its fine moments of storytelling, does feel the crunch of being adapted from a 5 hour mini-series. While not seen by me, I can tell that there is likely more room for subject matter to breathe, for the audience to digest a lot of this information. As with Watchmen, what they cut out probably worked for the feature film, but only up to a point. As in any story, in journalism or film, the details do stack up. All of the (very) impressive tricks with having cameras in the scenes shooting from far away and at different and opposing angles meant to create tension can't quite surmount this crunch. It's a good film that at times tries a little too much to be more important that it is.