Review and news hub for movies, music and video games

Visual:		8.0
Audio:		6.0
Acting:		6.0
Writing:		6.0
Score:		5.0

Director(s):	Kevin Macdonald
Writer(s):	Matthew Michael Carnahan and Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray (screenplay), Paul Abbott (original BBC miniseries)
Starring:	Ben Affleck • Helen Mirren • Jason Bateman • Jeff Daniels • Rachel McAdams • Robin Wright Penn • Russell Crowe
Genre:	Thriller
Website:	http://www.stateofplaymovie.net/
Release Date:	April 17, 2009
Rated:

Given the choice of watching a recap version of something brilliant rather than the actual thing, would you choose the recap? Because that is essentially what Kevin Macdonald’s State of Play is. This remake of the 2003 BBC mini-series of the same name does little more than condense 6 episodes worth of intrigue into a 2-hour running time, rushing through its plot points just to hit all the original’s marks. It’s not any more suspenseful, cerebral, or better acted. It’s just shorter, and ultimately a poor imitation.

State of Play’s mystery kicks off when Washington Globe reporter Cal McAffrey (a bohemian Russell Crowe) is assigned to the murder of a young black teen. In the movie, the boy is a junkie whose jonesin’ gets himself involved in an assassination plot, while in the miniseries, the boy being a junkie is the media jumping to conclusion based on his race, with Cal having to negotiate with an angry black community just to get ahead in his investigation. It makes sense to cut out all that stuff, given the time constraint, but it also serves as an example of why the film is immediately inferior. Despite keeping the majority of the plot intact, the film ignores the dramatic heft that arise from each tense situation. It keeps its focus on being a shadowy political thriller, with little depth to its characters.

The puzzle deepens when the dead boy is linked to the suspicious suicide of Washington aide Sonia Baker, opening up a sex scandal between her and Cal’s former college buddy Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), much to the dismay of his wife Anne (Robin Wright-Penn). Both Cal and Collins suspect that Sonia was murdered by the Blackwater-type security firm Pointcorp, whose rent-a-mercenary practice is being probed by the congressman. Rather than following up on the emotional fallout of the scandal—as writing-directing team Paul Abbott and David Yates did in the original—the film aspires to be another All the President’s Men, insofar as replacing actual newspaper investigations with a Depp Throat-esque contact (who then delivers an eye-rolling conspiracy exposition worthy of a Truther convention), as well as a string of coincidences.

I know I’m not being completely fair to it, as I am admittedly biased by my exposure to the brilliant miniseries, but that’s what happens when you remake a contemporary English-language project so closely, twist-by-twist. Even pooling the writing talents of Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom), Tony Gilroy (The Bourne series), Billy Ray (Breach) and the uncredited Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon), the script comes across as a poor hack-and-slash of Paul Abbott’s teleplay. When not stretched out over six episodes, all the big twists just seem ludicrous arriving one after another. The film remains a serviceable thriller, but seeing how the DVD of the far more gripping miniseries is readily available, why bother?

An original and timely angle that the film adds but sadly underdevelops is the death of the American newspaper, shriveling in the shadow of the big bad internet. This gives Russell Crowe’s Cal extra angst and the paper’s editor Cameron (Hellen Mirren) a ticking clock: if they don’t break the story fast, they risk looking obsolete. It also spawns a dynamic relationship between Cal and Della (Rachel McAdams), a Capitol Hill blogger whose profession irks Cal’s old-school journalistic soul.

It needs to be said that the death of the newspaper giant is no fault of the internet. As we march towards a new century, so must the press adapt to changing technology, which the film briefly hints at with Cal and Della’s reluctant alliance. Exploring this deeper would’ve been unique, making this version of State of Play stand out on its own with a hard-hitting look at the modern-day American media, but as with all other character developments, it’s quickly swept away for some of the same old paranoid crap.

As the closing credits play over a montage of newspapers being printed, the sense of nostalgia and respect for the dying art that it so transparently wants to evoke is lost, since clearly the two hours that precede it was not about journalism.