There were a few problems with this for sure, but I enjoyed it. For full disclosure’s sake, I am certainly a little more interested in the newspaper industry than the average bear, but I imagine most people will like it cause it is pretty well done.
Russell Crowe, in particular, was excellent as the lead character (a reporter) in this political/journalism/murder/corruption thriller story. Mainly because of this, I couldn’t help but compare this to The Insider a little bit. And while it’s certainly nowhere near that level, Crowe brought it here in a significantly lesser, but comparable way. Helen Mirren was also very good, even though the script forced her to play a character that was pretty much a rehashed Glenn Close from The Paper. Jason Bateman also might have done his finest non-Michael Bluth work in his limited screen time.
All in all, the plot was — like that of seemingly almost every movie I’ve seen in the past five years — a little unnecessarily convoluted and overly ambitious. I mean, when it comes to a sprawling, corruption tale, it wasn’t like a Syriana-level clusterf*** or anything but it could have borrowed a little more of the Michael Clayton-style clear-cut simplicity (which I was hoping for considering Tony Gilroy, the lead writer from Clayton, was involved in this screen play).
Vast conspiracies are already pretty complex and ambitious stories to tell, so I always wonder why people think they need to add 15 extra turns and plot wrinkles on top of the main narrative. But I still definitely dug State of Play quite a lot and will gladly watch it a few more times if it makes a run on the HBO/Cinemax circuit.
In other news, this might be the worst-titled movie of all time, which will probably continue to severely limit its exposure, particularly in an era when movie titles are increasing trending towards the literal and the self-explanatory like Zombieland, Gamer, Orphan, The Hangover, The Informant!, Big Fan, The Proposal, Whiteout, and Funny People.
My guess is that this whole phenomenon is catching on because it’s a lot easier to convince a studio exec to green light a flick when you say “Okay, the movie’s called Orphan and its about an orphan … with a twist.”
Then the exec is all “Soooo … Annie meets The Leprechan?” *strokes goatee* “Yeeeeaaahh. Yeahh. I see that. Sounds great. Big spring breaker. Get Jude Law. CGI the devil. Let’s fast track this one.”
