State of Play

This seems a tad bit early in the year for a flick like State of Play.  Thankfully, this was right in my wheelhouse and delivered on every possible level.  You couldn’t ask for a tighter story with an overflowing amount of solid performances.  This right here is why I love going to the theater.

These types of political intrigue movies come out by the dozen every year, so you really have to excel in order to be noticed.  State of Play was plotted to the last second and just kept you involved with the mystery until the credits rolled.  It seems like once a month I’m reading or watching a story based on Private Military Contractors.  They are definitely the new hotness.  On top of that, we got The Wire part 2 with the death of the newspaper industry.  It was all wound together into a damn near perfect story.  Getting into any more details would blow the mystery.

If getting an A+ plot wasn’t enough, the entire cast decided to step up and not get outshined by the person standing next to them.  You will never go wrong with Russell Crowe as the name on the top of the poster.  This was one of his classic performances, 30 pounds overweight, ratty hair, and just a regular guy.  He has this innate ability to just disappear into each role.  I don’t really have the space to breakdown the performance of everyone else in the cast, so let’s make this quick.  This was a fantastic non-jokey Ben Affleck role, the always impressive Helen Mirren, the first memorable dramatic performance by Rachel McAdams, scene-stealing Jason Bateman, a new favorite in Harry Lennix, drop by for Jeff Daniels, and you know applause for just about anyone else who appeared in front of the camera and spoke a line.

I would have expected such a deep political drama to be released after Thanksgiving, so State of Play was a nice surprise for the month of April.  Plus, I now have my first top 10 flick for 2009 unless I am lucky enough to get 10 more movies better than this.

9 out of 10