State of Play/State of Flux

“State of Play” is a fairly well acted and tautly wound political thriller. Like all really good scripts, its details are nuanced. It engages us because it takes place in the halls of Congress and a city newspaper as well. It’s not about cops and bad guys with guns, its about truth. How we uncover it, and how we process it.

Russell Crowe plays an ace investigative reporter for “The Washington Globe” in Cal McAffery. He has just covered three separate murders, all of which soon seem to be inexplicably linked. Rachel McAdams plays the newbie in the office who McAffery thinks could heed the wisdom of age-old reporters like himself. Namely, don’t rush to the gossip columns and spill the “truth” before full investigation has taken place. The problem is that in the demand for more readers, the paper’s new corporate bosses have demanded to cut costs and get more gossip scoops that appeal to readers today. Helen Mirren’s role as the chief editor accentuates the company’s relentless knack of breathing down the neck of reporters like Cal.

Remember the three dead I mentioned before? One them was a researcher for Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) who was launching a full-scale investigation of an unholy alliance known as PointCorp. Another one of the victims held a briefcase containing photographs of the woman that was doing the research for Collins. Soon we begin to see that all of these deaths are connected.

There are many more plot twists and surprises to even get into here, but this plot is interesting enough to keep you invested for most of the 2 hr. run time. It’s a movie in which political scandals and cover-ups are revealed a little too conveniently by story’s end; but an exercise in cleverly orchestrated suspense.

On the one hand the film is a meditation on the crisis that newspapers all over the country are experiencing. The demand for corporate headlines that will garner the attention of the last few straggling readers overshadows the need for cold-hard-facts journalism. Coupled with the oft-perceived two-bit gossip columnist style of blogging, our hero clearly feels true to the heart of what his medium has always been about. There is a subtle urgency to this material that makes you feel as if you are watching the last days of the newspaper business unfold right before your eyes. Although the stakes our two leads are involved in are never so much articulated, it slowly becomes evident that perhaps what they are fighting for is the nature of the business itself.
Let us not forget what has been said regarding our publication however. The medium may change, but we will still exist. Somehow or another we need the press. I think that’s what makes a movie like this important. The need to process information, and seek truth will still live on even if the old-fashioned format of printed media exists solely in the movies. Which it perhaps will someday. Like one of my favorite critics has said commenting on this film: It is way more fun to say on-screen “Stop the Press!” instead of “Stop the Upload!”


3.5/5