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Created Apr 30, 2009 10:28PM PST • Edited Jan 29, 2015 05:04PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   A competent thriller poisoned by a blood libel against US forces, State of Play nonetheless delivers more than a few thrills and a nifty plot twist worthy of Robert Ludlum. Politics aside, the movie ingratiates itself with a handful of charismatic performances and a nostalgic glimpse into the dying newspaper industry.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   The great Russell Crowe plays shaggy dog as well as can be done, here an ink stained wretch for the ages. Joined by the estimable Helen Mirren as his potty mouthed boss, the two great stars offer quite enjoyable dramatic interplay.

   A lean Ben Affleck delivers an effective performance as a conflicted congressman. While some of his statements are reprehensible (see Dialog below), Affleck deserves credit for putting his career back together with limited yet savvy turns like this.

   Rachel McAdams underwhelms as a web-based reporter, though she is cute as a button.

   Several supporting players lend humor and gravitas to the proceedings: Jeff Daniels, who shows he plays heavy as easily as he plays dumb in other movies; Robin Wright Penn, who cuts an intelligent and sympathetic figure as the wronged woman; and Jason Bateman, who provides the movie’s only comic relief as a PR man gone to seed.

   Oh, and Viola Davis creates a distinctive impression in a brief scene with Russell Crowe, even briefer than her Oscar-winning scene from Doubt.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    OK 2.5

    Starts off viscerally, with a thump you can feel in the cheap seats, a good thing for a thriller. And thrill it does, even though it bogs down after the bracing opening before picking up again during the third reel.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Bad 1.0

    Affleck’s character amalgamates a rogues gallery of Democratic congressmen: like Gary Condit, he carries on an affair with an aide, and then is less than helpful in the investigation of her murder; like John Murtha, he trades on his military background, and then libels the military service of others.¹

    Most of this works fine, until he levels a blood libel about U.S. forces – even though directed at private military contractors – that crosses the line of run-of-the-mill dramatic hyperbole, entering instead the realm of extremist propaganda. The red line section occurs when Affleck’s congressman rants at the head of a Blackwater-like company, accusing it of mass atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and preparing a de facto coup of the US government.

    The latter is ridiculous but harmless, and standard fare for this sort of plot (see Reality below). The gratuitous accusation of mass atrocities in Islamic countries, however, has the potential to hurt real Americans in a real way by feeding the worst Great Satan theories of Islamists and the Evil America views of the lunatic left, elements of which often overlap.

    Was this level of ad hominem attack necessary to advance the plot? Sure the bad guys in a thriller need to be made to look really bad. But these sort of offhand canards seep into the zeitgeist, deepening suspicions at home and abroad about the bona fides of US military forces. Affleck’s limousine-liberal politics are well known, so one imagines he hopes his speech will be taken at face value by his fans. Sadly it might get other Americans killed.

    In response to a similar – though real – abuse of power, a patriotic American once challenged an out-of-control congressman with the immortal words “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
    -—————————————————————-

    ¹ Affleck said he drew on the experiences of Gary Condit, Elliot Spitzer, and John Edwards while preparing for the role. [Source: Wikipedia]

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Good 3.0

    The newspaper production montage over the closing credits brilliantly provides an elegy for what we now know to be a very 20th Century industry, while also delivering a clever coda to the plot. Bravo.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.9

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Fierce 2.2

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Like the current season of TV’s 24, the big bad enemy of the state is a Blackwater-like company. Unlike 24’s Starkwood corporation, State of Play’s PointCorp isn’t just planning on taking over the US government after committing obviously fictional atrocities in an obviously fictional country: It is said to have systematically committed plausable atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reprehensible, this sort of cavalier canard.

    When right-wingers complain about the bias of the mainstream media, this movie can serve as Exhibit A. Overstated? Consider how left-wingers – from the genteel to the militant – have seized on it as a horse to which they can hitch their wagon. For instance, when this review was published, Google AdSense placed ads next to it from The US Militant Workers Union, whose slogan Workers Unite is taken directly from the Communist Manifesto; from the Center for International Policy, whose mission statement says it promotes a U.S. foreign policy based on demilitarization; and from The Progressive Book Club, a genteel-sounding club who nonetheless are fellow travelers with The US Militant Workers Union in their apparent enthusiasm for the politics of this movie. We know this because the Google ad system isn’t random: These advertisers must have specified in Google AdWords that they wanted their ads to run on pages that discussed State of Play, no doubt assuming they’d find a sympathetic audience. Sorry to disappoint them.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0