State Of Play
Review
by Anthony Morris
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Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck team up in the excellent State Of Play | 
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It is conspiracy time yet again in the halls of power.
You
can't trust anyone, how high up does this thing go, don't stand in
front of a window because a sniper could always be watching - and it is
all one man's fault!
It all starts as a determined investigation
by scruffy journalist Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) reveals that a pair
of seemingly unrelated deaths in Washington D.C. are in fact two
aspects of one massive, sinister plot.
Or are they?
The
plot here is just that twisty, and all too often in recent years this
kind of thriller has been content to keep the twists coming and leave
the other pleasures of movie watching (good performances, interesting
characters, knowing what the heck is actually going on at any given
moment) to fend for themselves.
Thankfully, this turns out to be a class act on every level.
While
the plot is twisty in the extreme, it is never so convoluted that it
can't be followed - or, more importantly, that we don't understand why
a certain witness is so important to find or how a certain piece of
evidence fits into the puzzle.
Crowe (playing the last
journalist alive who really cares about a story) continues to draw our
attention even when he is playing a regular guy, and even in the
occasional scene where we are expected to believe that Robin Wright
Penn once preferred him over Ben Affleck (who is extremely good here as
a do-gooder politician seemingly targeted by corporate interests) he is
never less than plausible.
Everyone else does their best
to bring their characters to life in the small gaps the relentless plot
leaves them, with Jason Bateman a huge stand-out as the slimiest PR man
alive and Penn animating the cliche of the yearning former-lover with
some serious emotional pain.
This is a suspense thriller
first and foremost so while it touches on some big issues (the
privatisation of the military, the ability of the press to break news
in the face of declining budgets) there is still plenty of time for
scenes where Crowe has to dodge a killer in a parking garage or a
witness gets gunned down before they can speak.
There is
a certain satisfaction that comes from seeing a well crafted and
constructed piece of genre entertainment that gets it all right: with State of Play satisfaction is guaranteed. 4 out
of 5
State Of Play
Australian release: 28th May, 2009
Official
Site: State Of Play
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, Helen Mirren
Director: Kevin Macdonald
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