State of Play B-

In Theatres, PG-13, 127 minutes
The great political thriller is that rarest of beast. It must speak to the contemporary situation without being preachy. It needs great action sequences without a great action star (unless you can get Harrison Ford in the 90’s, Redford in the ‘70’s, or Will Smith right now). The plot has to have at least one twist (preferably two) you can’t see coming, but that makes sense. And you need lots of good smart character actors who can play some of the smartest people in the country. State of Play almost pulls it off. Goodness knows its got plot twists to spare and a cast that would make Scorcese jealous. But it also takes an odd, luddite stance on the current newspaper situation, comes across as smug and sexist, and, well, has plot twists to spare.

A roly-poly Russell Crowe stars as throw-back D.C. journalist Cal McAfrey- the last man still interested in the bigger picture and not the mud rucking blogs that have come to pass for news. Ben Affleck, continuing a solidly charted comeback, is an old college roommate who’s now a senator gunning for a major defense contractor (think Blackwater). A stunning Robin Wright Penn is the congressman’s wife with a hazy past relationship with McAfrey. The “accidental” death of the senator’s pregnant head researcher/mistress rips scabs off barely-patched relationships and brings out the fore-mentioned bloggers like piranhas to bloody water, including McAfrey’s co-worker Della Frye (Rachel McAdams, who I’ve loved since Mean Girls).

The twists and turns don’t stop, though my suspension of disbelief did, as the selling-out of truth for infotainment, the selling off of national security to the highest bidder, and the trade-offs one makes to stay in power are all explored. Thrown into the mix are Helen Mirren playing Crowe’s wildly inconsistent editor, Jeff Daniels, perfect as the majority whip, and Jason Bateman playing a variation on his character in Smoking Aces as a predilection-heavy PR man scared to death but retaining a condescending sneer that steals every scene.

In the end, Crowe’s McAfrey emerges as a one-man crusader fighting for truth and old monotone computer screens, teaching Frye a thing or to about real journalism along the way. This film worships an imagined newspaper golden age in which editors cared about truth and not selling papers. The fact that Citizen Kane showed the other side of the news biz sixty-five years ago and that newspaperman William Hearst (on which Kane is based) is widely given credit for pushing the U.S. into war in Cuba to sell more print way back in 1898 is forgotten in this revisionist view of the past. Surprisingly for a movie that revels in slightly left pet issues, the film is also a bit sexist. McAdams character is content to learn at the feet of the master, and, in a final scene that strained even the slightest bonds to credulity, sits and watches McAfrey write the final article, giving her co-writing credit (although she’d done nothing for it), and then walks away, allowing her to hit the “send” button to submit it for publishing before running to catch up to him. Ridiculous. First 2/3rds of this one got a B+, but the last third is a C. B-