Movie Review: State of Play -DC/Newspaper Thriller Is Largely Hit or Miss

By Tim Neagle

There seems to be two unwritten laws for movies about newspapers:
1) There’s never a slow news day
2) Everybody misses deadline.

At least State of Play, the new thriller starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and Helen Mirren, skips the hoary tradition of newspaper movies that has an editor racing into a roaring pressroom, yelling, “Stop the presses!” and I bless them for that. But cliché and a nonsensical finish ultimately spoil this movie, which in the end is too labyrinthine for its own good.

Crowe plays Cal McAffrey, a veteran reporter for the Washington Globe, whose best friend is a crusading congressman played by Affleck. When the congressman’s top researcher (and secret lover) falls or is pushed to her death on the Washington Metro subway, the thrill ride begins.
Affleck is out to get an evil corporation called PointCorp (a thinly veiled fictitious version of Halliburton). But the bad guys take advantage of his assistant’s death to make the congressman’s affair with his aide public, largely destroying his reputation.

Crowe’s character tries to walk a delicate tightrope between pursuing a story and defending his friend. He tries to manage this while being teamed with Della Frye (McAdams), a blogger from the Globe’s online operation. Sparks fly, although they are generational, not romantic (and good for the movie for avoiding that pitfall: the spectacle in movies of men in their 50s dating women in their 20s is one that Hollywood should dispense with now and forever). The movie tries to portray the two reporters as practitioners of old and new journalism, and stages a few debates on that topic in the movie. The dice are loaded, however, and the blogger never wins an argument in this movie (rather the opposite of real life).

Helen Mirren is on hand as the Globe’s top editor, trying to cope with new corporate ownership and plunging circulation. She gives a fine performance, but the problem with the movie is that too many of the characters verge on cliché: the foulmouthed editor, the evil politician, the dewy-eyed kid reporter, the cynical old journalist showing her the tricks of the trade …. It all feels like we’ve seen all these people before, in other movies.

Similarly, the plot suffers from familiarity, even as it unwinds at a breakneck pace. Yes, once again we have the evil, omnipotent corporation, capable of killing at will and thwarting all efforts to bring it to heel. It makes you wonder, if the people running corporations are so smart, why are all of them broke right now?

The movie does score points in its portrayal of human frailty. All the characters are compromised in some ways. The crusading congressman has a chest full of dirty secrets, Russell Crowe’s character routinely violates journalistic ethics to protect his friend, and his protege/blogger lets him do it because she is ambitious to get ahead with her career. Ironically, the movie is at its sharpest when it portrays gray areas.

But the viewer eventually wearies of all the twists and turns in the plot, and the final twist is just absurd. But apparently, the filmmakers felt the need for one more plot gyration, which has the added bonus of making Russell Crowe’s character miss deadline.

State of Play’s heart is in the right place, and it is all brought off with a professional sheen, but it is ultimately unsatisfying. If you want to see a movie about some real Washington journalism, why not rent All the President’s Men? The newspapermen are still the heroes, and the outcome is a lot more believable.