Sunday, June 19, 2016

State of Play (2009) movie poster

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Writers: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, Billy Ray, Paul Abbott

Composer: Alex Heffes

Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Robin Wright, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels, Michael Berresse, Harry Lennix, Josh Mostel, Michael Weston, Barry Shabaka Henley, Viola Davis

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Find The Truth

Plot: When a congressional aide is killed, a Washington D.C. journalist starts investigating the case involving the congressman, his old college friend.



My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Here's the American film version of the BBC miniseries of the same name from 2003.  This is a pretty good political thriller that hits the right beats and has good performances but it struck me as just being reasonably entertaining and not as exciting as perhaps it should've been.  I'm keen to see the BBC miniseries now.  That one had six hours to play with.  I like the characters and the acting in this one but I didn't feel any tension.  The Jason Bateman interview was great.  That was probably my favorite scene.  It was more loose and free flowing and the editing helped build interest.  It's basically an above average political thriller that feels perfectly content being good but not great.  That might sound like a slam but it's not my intention.  The Universal DVD has a nice anamorphic widescreen print with the only extras being 4 minutes of deleted scenes and a 19 minute making of featurette.

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