Russell Crowe plays a journalist investigating the death of a woman linked to a Congressman in State of Play. It stands out from most standard political thrillers mainly because of the fantastic ensemble and taut script, although the ending is sort of a cop-out. It makes countless twists and turns and when you think the story’s all wrapped up and done with, it drops another plot line on you. It’s as smart as a thriller can get. Thankfully the twists never get too outlandish, which has been something of a problem with movies recently.
One night two men are murdered under a bridge. The next day, a woman is killed in an apparent accident at a train station. The woman was a chief advisor for an ambitious Congressman named Stephen Collins (Affleck), and was also secretly his mistress. Collins is clearly shaken. His journalist friend Cal McAffrey (Crowe) notes a connection: Collins is currently holding hearings against PointCorp, a corporation which could potentially seize all emails, all phone taps, and even the national defense infrastructure. McAffrey teams up with blogger Della Frye (McAdams) to try to follow the connections, but they stumble upon an even broader and more violent conspiracy than they thought.
Given Russell Crowe’s track record, I was expected a decent movie. But what I got was the most engrossing film so far this year. It unravels a plot twist every 15 minutes, but never feels gimmicky or contrived. It continuously maintains a coherent plot and doesn’t pull a giant, will-destroying twist in the last half-hour. (I’m lookin’ ya dead in the eye, Eagle Eye) Russell Crowe has never really played a hippie-type role before, and it’s interesting to see. He pulls it off well. It seems with his films whatever type of character he plays is expressed in his hairdo. Helen Mirren, in her first actual performance since her Oscar-winning ‘The Queen’, has 10 minutes and 20 lines as the narcissistic newspaper editor and they’re all golden. Ben Affleck is really good as a secretive Congressman. He’s rather somber the whole film, and although some lines are delivered weakly its a strong performance.
The ending is a bit disappointing. I only say that not because it’s bad from a narrative perspective, but that I was so immersed in the plot and so tense by the end that when it ended it somewhat jolts you. In side roles, the normally lovable Jason Bateman is a very convincing hot-shot jerk and Jeff Daniels as a potentially corrupt State Representative is great. He is always very good in these roles as politicians or cops or TV executives, although I wish he’d do another comedy in the vein of ‘Dumb & Dumber’.
In short, ‘State of Play’ is a great surprise. It has an incredibly tense third act, the performances are all great (Jason Bateman & Helen Mirren are notable) and there are twists and turns everywhere. Now why can’t more movies do this? A-
