Quick Review: Fun, well acted drama-thriller that touches on real time issues,
Paul Abbott’s near six hour 2003 BBC miniseries has been turned into a more movie friendly 127 minutes Relocating the political murder-mystery from London to Washington. This was no easy achievement and it took a a team of writers to pull it off- the extensive screenwriting team includes Matthew Michael Carnahan ("The Kingdom"), Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton"), Billy Ray ("Shattered Glass") and some uncredited revisions by Macdonald friend Peter Morgan ("Frost/Nixon").
The death of investigative journalism, the death of newspapers themselves, the movement to news blogs, corruption in military spending, corruption of the private mercantilism, jealous, ego it’s all here
Similar or comparable to: "All the President's Men
," "The Killing Fields" and "The Year of Living Dangerously."
Directed by of Kevin Macdonald who was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1967, He is married to Tatiana Lund with whom he has three sons and lives in North London. Kevin Macdonald is the grandson of legendary filmmaker Emeric Pressburger
, who, with partner Michael Powell, wrote, produced and directed such films as Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945) under their production banner "The Archers".Kevin began his career with a biography of his grandfather, The Life and Death of a Screenwriter (1994), which he turned into the documentary The Making of an Englishman (1995).Kevin Macdonald's first major feature film "The Last King of Scotland"
which received a limited release in the United States. In the United States the film was rated "R" by the MPAA for strong violence, gruesome images, nudity, and strong language. Forest Whitaker received outstanding critical acclaim for his performance as dictator Idi Amin in the film. He won the Best Actor award at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs, in addition to awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review and many other critics awards, for a total of at least 23 major awards. The film received a 2007 BAFTA Award for Best British Film and the BAFTA award for Best Adapted Screenplay, in addition to receiving nominations for Best Film. James McAvoy (who was brilliant) was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.(Up Coming: Kevin Macdonald has made a deal with New Regency to develop and direct "The End of Eternity"
by Isaac Asimov. The "futuristic tale concerns a ruling class called Eternity whose members can manipulate time and alter history." The State of Play director is also making "Eagle of the Ninth," a Roman military drama for Focus Features. [via: Variety])State of Play:
Rated PG-13 for some violence, language including sexual references, and brief drug content.
This film State of Play also holds the possibility, I believe, for two Oscar nods- Russle Crowe playing an investigative reporter for "The Washington Globe" and Helen Mirren who plays the he Globe's editor, Cameron Lynne.This movie has been a long time coming, and was originally cast to have Brad Pitt in Crowe's spot and Edward Norton in Affleck spot. (That would have been something bringing Pitt and Norton together again - a dynamic duo in Fight Club
.) Brad Pitt nicknamed the film "State of Delay" after being stalled on it.Two less than stellar performances in this movie- Ben Affleck was off for this role, and Jason Bateman was a little over the top, for me, playing a shady publicist.
The plots conclusion contains a twist that I think adds a powerful punch, making the film more unique.
As reviewer Claudia Puig, wrote "It's unusual for a thriller, but there's almost a wistful quality amid the suspense, culminating in final sequences that seem almost to pay tribute to the evolving world of newspapers."
Watch the closing credits, behind which gives a fascinating view of how newspapers are made. Nice touch.
Trailer
Spoilers
This is the plot untwisted.
Crowe and Affleck character went to college together. Crowe goes on to become a newspaper journalist "Cal McAffrey" (stereotyping- unkempt, long haired, messy desk and the most un-paperless office imaginable), and Affleck becomes Rep. Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck)(stereotyping- perfectly coiffed, youthful enthusiasm for job and justice, secrets, and an ability to step on others to suite his purpose).
A third person from their past Anne (Robin Wright Penn) marries Collins, though she had feelings for Cal who was non committal at the time. Sometime early in the marriage Cal had an affair with Collins wife, and though Collins knew, he did nothing about it (speaks to his character?).
The movie begins with a man running from an assailant who catches him and then executes him. A passing young man delivering pizza witnesses the shooting, so the shooter shoots him. The pizza man lives.
Harry_LennixCal (Crowe) driving about finds himself at the scene and presses a friendly detective (well played by Harry Lennix) into providing what information is known. The pizza delivery person is in a comma, the dead man has a shady past. Possibility of a drug deal gone wrong.
Then a woman is pushed in front of a train. It turns out that she is the Congressman Collins' ( Affleck) chief research assistant (Maria Thayer). The Congressman is overly distraught about the death. He is in the midst of a congressional investigation involving corruption of the US hired mercenaries fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq (as well as hired for security in the Hurricane Katrina ordeal-much like Blackwater). The Congressman's emotionss are so revealing that he is suspected of having had an affair with this research assistant. Which he admits to, first to a senior colleague, who explains how he will overcome this problem if he just backs off a little on the Mercenary inquiry.
Wife Anne (Penn) not wanting to see him, the Congressman (Affleck) shows up at the home of Cal (Crowe), old time buddy, looking for some companionship, and perhaps a little leniency from the newspaper that Cal (Crowe), writes for. The research assistant, it is speculated by the media, (including Cal's paper) that the research assistant committed suicide over the affair. The Congressman though has a video message though from her earlier in the morning showing her anything but depressed.
Unfortunately the video monitors at the train station don't show what happened.
Cal (Crowe), though, cant control the sensation seeking on-line writter Della (Rachel McAdams) a hyper-aggressive new-generation blogger who smells a blood in the Congressman's misdeed and enlist the newspapers editor to pressure Cal (Crowe), into helping `get' his old friend. Meanwhile Cal ,tries to consort the Congressman's wife Ann (Penn), who is angry and hurt and vulnerable and might go for some revenge sex with Cal (Crowe), Cal is dignified and wants instead a good resolution with Ann standing up for her husband and forgiving.
(The timing of this review has Mrs. Edwards publishing a book on her husbands infelicity during the 2008 election. She knew about her husbands affair and yet continued to campiegn with him, After the press found out she also stood by his side -while suffering from terminal cancer).
Then we meet a street tramp (Sarah Lord) who steels Cal (Crowe) suitcase. She explains to him that she and her `man' had the steeling suitcase/briefcase scam where they sold back the stolen property to the owner. Her partner though was killed after selling back a silver suitcase. The tramp however stole some pictures out of the suitcase, before it was returned and offers to sell them to crowe for $500 dollars.
The pictures reveal that someone had been spying on the Congressman's ( Affleck) research assistant/lover. Several of the pictures showed the woman in tears talking to a man. This meant that there was a real possibility that the research assistant was murdered. the paper decides to hold onto to the pictures while the reporters do a little more digging so that they can scoop the story.
Then news comes that the pizza delivery person was coming out of a coma. By now the editor has paired Cal (Crowe), with his junior on-line writter Della (Rachel McAdams) in investigating the story. Della being the junior is sent to babysit the pizza delivery guy and question him if possible when he awakes. She passes someone in the cultivator. As the man comes out of his coma she sneaks her way into his room against the protest of a doctor and a nurse. Then from outside the window shot come in, killing the awakening patient.
The paper decides to give the pictures over to the enraged police. Clearly who ever shot the pizza guy was a professional, and with the link now to the Congressman's research assistant this was turning out to be a very serious matter.
The Congressman and his wife make a joint statement that they are working things out. And Cal (Crowe), and Della (McAdams) find the man from the picture- a PR person played by Gatesman. In an unlikely series of scenes, they convince him to a dive hotel/motel (that has been wired with video and sound) to tell his side of the story. He admits that he was hired to find a person who could be a mole for the Mercenary group inside the Congressman office. He knew a person he thought she would be a perfect fit. She got the job and was payed by both sides- the Congrssional office and the Mercanary group. She was not told to sleep with the Congressman - she did that on her own. And then as her affair grew deeper she stopped providing information for the client. Gatesman had some talks with her. But then she was killed.
Crowe calls the Congressman to come to the hotel (again unbelievable- the scene is made worse by the fact that after he gets off the phone with Cal (Crowe), who must have his private number, he hands the phone to a secretary and who is complaining he is already late for a meeting. He tells her he will call (how can he if he gave his phone away?). The Congressman (Affleck) shows up at the hotel and reviews the tape of the PR man, and learns that his assistant whom he was having an affair with was pregnant when she was killed. (Also a nod to Edward's mistressess fatherless baby.)
In another unbelievable scene where the PR guy who was `sleeping it off' (he was supposedly on uppers and had one beer and had passed out on a bed) is beaten by theCongressman.
The next scene though is much better, when Congressman (Affleck) confronts Cal (Crowe) on his unsympathetic revealing of the pregneancy of his girlfriend. It was cruel way to find out, and the cruelty might have been a bit of punishment thrown out by Cal to his college friend for cheating on his wife.
Cal however believes that the real story is the recommendation of the spy by the senior Congressman Jeff Daniels playing Senator George Fergus who obviously was working for the mercenaries. Cal (Crowe), confronts the senator who backlashes with threats of his power -not only stopping the story but also of having Cal loose his job.
Della (McAdams) the junior reporter, reviewing again the train station video connects a face with one that she had passed at the hospital before the shooting, making that man at the scene of train station murder and also at the hospital as the pizza delivery man was waking up and just before he was shot.
An insider at the Mercenaries confirm that the man in the picture was or is a grunt- former military. He is most likely the killer. And an address is found in an apartment building. Cal goes to visit and runs into the suspect . They meet awkwardly and Cal does an impressive job escaping- impressive even considering that the whole `caught in a garage with a killer scene' has been done so many times.
Meanwhile the paper wants to go to press with what they have- or not. The editor (Mirren) holds firm that they need a serious source for all the claims they are making. Just as the story is literally going to die, the Congressman and his wife show up to save the story, help their writer friend, set the record straight and tell the truth. It is possible political suicide for the Congressman. His wife Anne, though, is more forgiving now knowing that her husband had been set up and seduced by a professional.
The story is typed up and all seems settled.
At this point we the viewers are beginning to suspect that the killer will be targeting the Congressman, who has just bared his soul to the newspaper and revealed the elder senator and the Mercenaries connection to the conspiracy that he fell into. The story is saved. The junior and senior reporter are celebrating with a bit of whiskey (Irish wine.)
Then Cal connects the picture of the man to another picture he has seen- one of the Congressman from his days in the military. Sure enough, that man was in the same picture with the Congressman meaning they had served together.
Cal stands up and tells Della ( McAdams) basically to `hold the press!!' ( Again unbelievable as we are lead to believe that they held the press for four hours) Cal goes to confront the Congressman at his office- (as though anyone can just walk into the senate building post 9/11).
We know something is going to happen as we see the ex-soldier reporting on the phone that he will be fulfilling his mission. The final plot twist comes swiftly and with so little warning
Cal (Crowe), goes to confront the Congressman at his office- (as though anyone can just walk into the senate building post 9/11). The Congressman revels that he was suspecting something was fishy about his lover/research assistance and so he had his old buddy following her. He never thought anyone would get hurt - the street thief , the pizza delivery man nor his research assistant. The guy was a little off.
But all of the Congressman's knowledge made him criminal by association. This is a twist on the concept that the criminal activities committed by the Mercanaries on the US's behalf are also our (the US's) responsibilities.
Cal (Crowe), can just walk away from this part of the story, no one needs to know that the Congressman was using an ex-military friend to do some spying for him that got a little out of control. Isn't that part of friendship?
But Cal and the Congressman were not really friends, they were rivals. The Congressman had gotten the girl and Cal , remained alone, the Congressman got the money and the prestigious job, Cal remained committed to a job that didn't pay a lot and that was heading for extinction. Crowe was going to see the Congressman (Afflex) go down.
Interesting connection to the present day news that the Obama Administration will not go after those responsible for the illeagle torture methods used under the Bush Administration. Their only trial comes at the hands of the media and not the justice system, and though embarrassed they go unpunished.
As Cal leaves the Congressman's office he informs him that the police are already on their way.
The killer is waiting outside. The cops arrive at the right moment. We are left wondering: had the Congressman called upon the killer to kill Cal, or was the man `off on his own" (caused by post traumatic stress from his time in the military) ? Will the Congressman actually go to jail, split with his wife? Will Cal end up with the young reporter or with his old flame the Congressman's wife? Will the paper be around in a year?
The conclusion shows the series of stories that came from this event as they make their way from proofs to papers being trucked out for delivery.
Here is a bit of a political take on the movie by Ben Affleck
Here is the Russle Crowe interview
Reviewed by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)
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