- The power went out in my building around 5:30pm and by 8:30pm I was already having difficulty reading by candlelight, so I decided that instead of sitting at home in the dark, I’d go to the movies and sit in the dark there instead. It was either State of Play or Obsessed, and I decided although Idris Elba would be appealing, Beyonce would not be, so I saw State of Play.
- The title “State of Play” kind of conveys everything you need to know about this movie: it has that vague, Jack Ryan political thriller quality without actually meaning anything in and of itself. I know the title is the same as the BBC miniseries this movie is based on, but it’s probably one of the more useless titles I’ve encountered in a while.
- Russell Crowe was okay in this. Kind of a ham in his part of the “seasoned professional who can’t keep up with the times shows tech-savvy cub reporter how investigative journalism really works” angle. I think perhaps he thought this was a comedy? Watching him run was pretty funny, at any rate.
- Haha, I want Helen Mirren to be my boss. When she said “Fuck you very much” to Crowe, I died.
- They did a poor job of trying to moderately age Ben Affleck. In his first scene he’s got these prosthetic eye wrinkles to go with the four strands of grey hair they’ve given him to make him look like an older, moderately seasoned politician (they grey hair coming no doubt from job-related stress). Fine. But then the pretty much dropped the charade with the eye wrinkles after that, as if someone said “Look, they’re cutting our make-up budget by $5, so since we’ve already established that Ben is old in that first shot, maybe no one will notice if we don’t keep making him up the same way for the rest of the film.” Wrong. No gold stars, make-up crew.
- Stop me now, my love for the Affleck brothers is out of control. Not that Casey’s in this, mind you, but the whole time I was like “Ben Affleck, I kind of love you and I don’t care who knows it.” I DON’T CARE, YOU SEE?
- I am enjoying Jeff Daniels when he shows up in roles like this or like in Good Night, and Good Luck. He adds a bit of something special to the mix.
- Jason Bateman’s character reminded me what an utter travesty “Dominic” is as a name. Also, the motel they were interviewing him in looked like an off-the-highway dive; do these places usually come with irons? Dominic’s reaction to the room was pretty hysterical, though.
- Why is it that every time someone is in the hospital and needs a police officer stationed outside the door, they always pick a cop who gets up and leaves his post multiple times?
- This movie is kind of like a new driver trying to learn how to drive stick: when it’s motoring along it’s really great, but otherwise it stalls a lot and has difficulty shifting gears when INTENSE ACTION™ is not required in the scene.
- The best part was seriously the closing credits when they showed the process by which a newspaper gets printed.
Categories: 2.5 Stars
Yeah the closing credits was my favourite part because it was very interesting to see that. I have the original series on DVD and have been dreading this film for a long time but saw it anyways. The character of Cam played by Mirren was done by Bill Nighy in the series and I still can’t decide who I like more. The series also had James McAvoy so that was obviously missing me for me
Anyways it was better than I thought but still not wonderful and based on reviews I had read I thought the plot would be way different but it was not at all minus changing who the evil corp was. Also, I don’t find Ben attractive but seriously why would anyone want Russell Crowe, particularly looking that fat and gross, over Affleck? Psht.
Who was James McAvoy in the BBC version, Ben Affleck or Rcahel McAdams (or someone else)?