State of Play

Politics is a dirty game. Journalists are buggers. Classic journalism is almost a thing of the past. Tony Gilroy is a good writer. Kevin Macdonald has a nose for interesting, current material. Russell Crowe has charisma even with his dad-bod belly. Helen Mirren can take over even when given a minimum of space. Jeff Daniels has his best years behind him. Rachel McAdams is completely uninteresting. Simply old, familiar truths that are also completely true here. The only truth that doesn't apply here is the one about remakes being redundant, because this one is anything but redundant or bad. It does not tarnish the good name of the British original, rather the opposite. (29/05/2009)

It is important not to expect a gripping espionage ride, but rather a lightly sarcastic thriller with a sharply eloquent Russell Crowe and an unremarkable Ben Affleck, again. While watching, I had a feeling that I’d already seen hundreds of films like this, and it is quite possibly true. I recommend it more to fans of the investigative subgenre, the uninitiated will not enjoy it, they will be bored. (14/11/2009)

Very nice directing and good actors, but the script hardly traverses the three levels of the story: thriller, political-journalistic moralizing and personal drama. The introduction is excellent, full of the unique and very rhythmic direction by Macdonald, but then everything somehow shatters, shreds, evaporates... the legible transnational conspiracy tries to compare with the more serious mental matrix, but it is tedious and quite protracted. The final twists may come as a surprise, but they do not fix the shoddy impression from the previous storytelling. In the end, State of Play is neither an original thriller nor a film that would appeal to us with any message. It has a little bit of both and not enough of either. Nevertheless, mainly thanks to the directing and the actors, it holds up more than honorably. [70%] (18/05/2009)

Too bad that the screenwriters focused so much on the journalist plot, which is not that important for the audience. The editor-in-chief character, played by Helen Mirren, and her effort to publish the best article just slows the film down. The viewer is not interested in newspapers, but in revealing secrets, developing relationships between superbly played characters and the threats to their lives in a dangerous high-stakes political game. Wouldn’t Russell Crowe be enough for the journalism plot? Otherwise, however, State of Play is a very decent film, Ben Affleck is fine and the emotions between Crowe and Robin Wright Penn are completely believable. (07/06/2009)

Take out Affleck's dull, inarticulate expression and Helen Mirren's superfluous character of a principled journalist, and you are left with the best you could wish for in a conspiracy political thriller: a great plot, a dense atmosphere sculpted by tons of political dirt and forbidden machinations, a terrific score, and four or five excellent actors who we trust to live and breathe their characters. But be warned, it's still nothing but highly stylized and cleverly twisted Hollywood entertainment with an intrepid Crowe and an attractive McAdams, where the spectacular pursuit of justice far outweighs the honest themes of classic conspiracy films. But you have to get used to it, because you can't do better than this in the genre today – and personally I’m not complaining. 80% (10/05/2014)