Excitement meets nostalgia in "State of Play"

This is reposted from the April 23 issue of The Column.

I wasn’t expecting a lot. I had seen the trailer for “State of Play” a few times, and it looked interesting enough. There was a passing (and, I assumed, token) reference to journalism, so I told our feature editor Ben that we should go see it. Shortly thereafter, we got two free passes to a prescreening (just one perk of our prestigious – OK, not really – Column jobs), and soon we were waiting expectantly for the movie to begin.

What followed was a lot more than I had expected.

In the first few minutes of the film, two people in Washington D.C. are shot dead by a mysterious man with a metal briefcase. Soon thereafter, an important aide to a congressman is found dead, ruled suicide. The congressman tears up during his announcement of her death, and it soon becomes clear that the two were having an affair. All things considered, it is a busy day for The Washington Globe, where the scruffy but clever Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) works as an old school investigative journalist.

McAffrey is originally in charge of reporting the double murder (thought to be a routine drug killing), but the congressman in question, Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), is an old college friend of his, and, after Collins comes to him with a claim that the aide was murdered, McAffrey wants the story covered properly. By properly, he mostly means “not by a blogger,” namely Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). Frye is a young “online journalist,” who sometimes annoys McAffrey because she’s more interested in the quick scoop than in fact checking. However, he senses some genuine enthusiasm for the truth in Frye, so he allows her to partner with him on the story while he teaches her some good old-fashioned journalistic method. Meanwhile, Collins is attempting to reconcile with his wife, all the while trying to hold down his position on a committee investigating alleged atrocities committed by a military contracting company. Are these events connected in any way? If so, who’s behind it all, and what will the consequences be for those who dare to uncover the plot?

To tell you much more about the film’s story would be both unnecessary and unfortunate, as “State of Play” is a movie best experienced with little sense of what’s going to happen next. Its circuitous plot twists and turns right through to the conclusion, but it also never stops making sense if you’re paying attention.

It’s clearly an intelligent film, and it’s one that expects its viewers to be intelligent as well. Terms like “collusive” pop up, and the viewer is expected to know or figure out what they mean. Ethical questions appear from time to time as well. Is McAffrey’s involvement a conflict of interest? If so, where does he cross the line? We’re encouraged to think it through.

The ethical questions are only compounded by the fact that even McAffrey has been prone to misdeeds in the past. The movie creates very real characters as sure to develop viewer attachment as they are to make you think. Overall, “State of Play” is a fast-paced, cerebral thriller, sure to excite and surprise. However, there was another reason that I liked it even more.

The movie plays like a sort of love song to journalism and newspapers. McAffrey and his cranky editor (Helen Mirren) bemoan the fact that The Globe is losing money, and much is made of the conflict between print newspapers and online sources.

The film’s conclusion? Blogs might get you a story faster, but newspapers deliver the complete – and accurate – report. The newsroom is presented as that lovable, noisy place where hard-working but fun-loving journalists pound out their stories on deadline, not caring much about decorum or cleanliness.

It’s obvious that the film owes much of its inspiration to “All the President’s Men,” the classic Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman flick chronicling the true story behind Woodward and Bernstein’s uncovering of the Watergate cover-up. They are obviously held in high regard by the filmmakers of State of Play, as are all journalists who strive for the truth.

However, “State of Play” is not ignorant of the fact that newspapers are not in the best of shape these days. The Globe’s ownership is trying all sorts of gimmicks to increase its readership, and it’s up to the down-to-earth journalists like McAffrey to keep the press from being a non-mobile version of TV.

I appreciate that in a film. In today’s world of hustle and bustle, instant news, constant channel flipping and tab switching, I think that the focused information and perspective found in newspapers is still a worthwhile pursuit. And, if you made it to the end of this review, thanks.
Who knows? Perhaps you think that newspapers are worth something too.