State of Play is a thriller movie with a strong star cast playing intense roles. Ben Affleck plays a US Congressman Rep. Stephen Collins who is investigating a private arms contractor company to which substantial work has been outsourced by the Pentagon. Russell Crowe plays a senior journalist Cal McAffrey with fictional newspaper The Washington Globe.
There are a few other characters in supporting roles but don’t deserve specific mention here.
Since Affleck is investigating a very big, very rich, very important and obviously very bad (!) corporation one thing you can assume that this mammoth private corporation must have a plot to take over the entire world.
The plot is that very sensitive governmental operations have been outsourced to this corporation and a series of them are coming there way. The corporation has already been outsourced policing functions in Iraq and will be given some big contract by which the corporation will essentially get the power to collect intelligence over American and outside subjects.
Well, only one thing stands in their way.
The US Congressman and his committee investigating into the Pentagon and their outsourcing projects. And then something happens and the entire investigation starts to fall away. Well, actually, only Affleck needs to be removed from the scene and the big bad corporation makes a lethal move to remove the only impediment that stands in the way of big dollars and great power.
Not so easy. Senior journalist Russell Crowe is also on the job and with a few people killed by a mysterious secret agent, the police is on the job too. And then for some time, Affleck is sort of taken off the picture and the turf fight between journalists and police comes into picture. And the story develops. And keeps on developing. And keeps you glued to your seat.
The screenplay of the movie is tight and in my opinion the western technicians seemed to have perfected the art of using the camera and the screen to keep their viewers glued. The direction is fine and the story moves and a bone breaking speed with new twists and new additions to the investigation into a series of death.
And with great anticipation you munch the popcorns or whatever it is that you munch while watching movies to see what the whole plot is about, because the whole idea of one corporation taking over effectively everything is scary and it is sold is such a way that the audience will buy it. And if you have been reading conspiracy theories and spy novels you might as well believe and this is your kind of film.
But just as every dot is connected and all the chips fall into place, something really stupid happens and you realize that the whole façade was about something so completely else, you might scream out loud and feel like breaking a few thing. That last twist was unnecessary, in my opinion, because till then the story made perfect sense. But not after that twist!!
The story also shows how big business and big money has seriously affected journalistic integrity in the USA, something we’ve all read and heard about so many time and for so long I have stopped taking major US newspapers seriously except I trust The Financial Times. The indirect reference to falling quality of journalism also finds a reference in the movie when the chief editor of The Washington Globe sort of takes a young blonde journalist off the story and puts more experienced Crowe on it and actually says to the blonde that it is time now that senior more experienced journalists handle the story. Crowe’s character be praised he decided to keep the blonde on the story so that she might also end up learning a few tricks about big time serious journalism. I was instantly able to connect this episode with a similar thing happening in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3 where Konkana Sen was the page 3 type journo but the things developed differently in that movie.
Finally, State of Play is a good, fast paced thriller that you can enjoy with your family or spouse or girl or boy friend or alone if you were so inclined. It is entertaining, edge of the seat kind of movie with a big corporation with a very sinister objective trying to take up the world. It has action, drama, thrill, spy action, political action, journalist-trying-hard-to-find-the-truth-and-willing-to-sacrifice-life-for-it kind of action, personal twists.
Most important thing – Russell Crowe the journo and Ben Affleck the politician are close friends!! That results in some very impassioned scenes with impassioned exchange of dialogue between them and for each other with other characters. It is enjoyable. So enjoy.