Playaz

It's good that State of Play came out the same week as 17 Again. The Zac Efron flick basically acted as a giant vacuum sucking out the same audience that went to see Twilight. This means State of Play was emptied of kids yelling, "FAG!" and texting each other non stop and instead was filled with people who actually do things like pay taxes and get excited at the thought of going bowling.

Perhaps this pleasant atmosphere put me in a generous mood since I wasn't expecting much going into the movie and actually ended up enjoying it. It's been a while since I've seen a decent movie about intelligent adults engaged in political intrigue and, while it has a few too many twists and turns, I didn't really see them coming. Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald actually lets the characters and story set the movie's mysterious and dangerous atmosphere instead of doing what most movies and television do these days and just shoot everything in dark, atmospheric lighting.

The movie opens with the worst purse snatching ever as the thief seems almost determined to trip over everything in his path. When he finally gets a moment of peace, it is rudely interrupted by his murder. We cut to a subway platform and meet a pretty young woman named Sonja Baker who also ends up dead by being smacked in the face by a subway train but whether she jumped or was pushed is a matter of some debate.

This is where we meet Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), a reporter for the fictional Washington Globe, and Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), a Congressman for the fictional Congress that aggressively investigates things like corporate wrongdoing. Cal goes to cover the purse snatching murder for his paper and also ends up looking into the Sonja Baker death due to the fact that she worked for his old friend, Congressman Collins and boy howdy, who would have thought the two deaths were connected? It turns out that Collins was cheating on his wife with Sonja Baker but I suppose he was due an affair since his wife had once cheated on him with his old pal, Cal McAffrey. Injecting herself into this Washington soap opera is Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), a blogger for the Globe's online edition who's instantly hated by Cal because she's a blogger and he's a Luddite who thinks a story is only worthwhile if people have to wash the newsprint off their hands after they read it even though the newspaper industry, even in this movie, is going the way of the dodo. You can tell Della is a reporter because she wears the same clothes that female reporters in movies have been wearing for decades (ruffled blouse with a vest and a calf long skirt that says, "No, you cannot screw me.")

In addition to routinely rocking his world and believing him when he says that oh yeah he's DEFINITELY planning to leave his wife, it turns out that Sonja Baker was the lead researcher for Collins investigation of Powercorp, a Blackwater-type company that supplies security personnel to the military and seems to exclusively employ thugs who are compensated by being allowed to commit atrocities in foreign countries. Cal discovers that her number was on the cell phone of the murdered purse snatcher which leads to...well, that's enough of the plot. As I said, the movie I think has a few too many twists, turns and surprises but it'll still be fun to discover them for yourself.

I do want to mention yet another great performance from Jason Bateman who plays Dominic Foy, a corrupt P.R. man who turns out to have key information to the whole case. Bateman is one of the movie industry's most underrated actors, a fact made obvious when he's onscreen with both Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck and manages to outact them both. This reminds me of the last time Bateman and Affleck were onscreen together in a dumb ensemble crime piece called Smokin' Aces, a movie I remember almost solely for Jason Bateman's character. I like Jason Bateman so much I'm not even going to make fun of a movie he's making with Jennifer Aniston called The Baster whose IMDB profile goes like this:

An unmarried 40-year-old woman turns to a turkey baster in order to become pregnant. Seven years later, she reunites with her best friend, who has been living with a secret: he replaced her preferred sperm sample with his own.

Yeah...okay...I'm sure that'll be...what's the word...good? I'll just go ahead and copy the, "a movie I remember solely for Jason Bateman's character," line now so I can paste it in when I review that movie.

Anyway, this isn't a great movie but it's portrayal of Crowe as a man whose only real asset in life is his dedication to the ideals of a job that he may not have much longer so yes, go see it unless you feel you will not have truly lived unless you watch Zac Efron do the Hammer dance.

On an unrelated note, I'll be out of town for a bit and not sure if I'll have computer access or time to write. If I manage to find both, there'll be something new on Wednesday. If not see you next week.