A young redheaded urban professional is murdered in Washington, D.C. She was the assistant to U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), who himself is embroiled in a committee on the verge of making a radical change in our nation’s defense policy. Is there a connection? This is all part of what reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) must learn in order to keep his struggling newspaper afloat in the thriller State of Play.
State of Play brings in the star power, and then some. Once again, Russell Crowe does what he is paid to do. As Cal enters a room, he’s not the gladiator, and he’s not a math wiz. Crowe’s range is not pushed to superhuman limits here, but the persona he takes on seems appropriate. Too bad the same can’t be said for Affleck. Recent Oscar winner, Helen Mirren, plays a minor character as Cal’s pushy boss. The younger female, Rachel McAdams is opposite Russell Crowe for the majority of the picture. As Della Frye, McAdams, plays a rookie reporter. You can spot her greenness in two manners. First, there is time spent suggesting that she needs to carry a pen and paper; and on that note we have the only instance of characterization in the film. Second, she spells her last name incorrectly—zing!
A lackluster story with little to no mystery is a major flaw in a thriller. Anyone who saw the trailer for State of Play, could have left for a refill on the popcorn and not lost a beat. As a matter of fact, the trailer gives away information which our characters spend the better part of half the film discovering. I have to blame the director, Kevin Macdonald for allowing such a trailer to be released.
It’s not a solid screenplay. At one point Cal tries to trick someone. He asks the man in question, who claims to be a friend of the deceased, if he knows the name of the dead girl’s mother. Naturally, this works for Cal and his opponent is caught off guard. But it also points out a flaw in the script, because the audience can’t answer the same question. We never befriend her parents. We never even get a sense of the deceased Sonia Baker (Maria Thayer), because her only line comes via camera phone. Audiences only weep over characters they meet.
There are elements that make no sense from a directorial stance. Near the start of the film, when Cal appears at the crime seen, there is a shot of an obscured girl looking out from a rooftop. It looks like B role, lasts maybe a second, so it registered in my minds as set dressing. Many minutes later, she is seated outside the morgue. Cal walks by and she demands him to purchase her a soda from a vending machine. At the time it happened, I was mystified. Then she steals his bag in what can only be described as a call card moment. I didn’t get a good look at her until the soda scene, so how is an audience expected to remember the one obscure shot at the crime scene? Mind you, the film is littered with other moment where things appear noteworthy only to be forgotten. Another shot that comes to mind is a close-up of Cal handling a coffee mug during a meeting. Given the rare use of a close-up, I thought he could be passing a note to someone, but it was pointless. If the pointless and the pivotal are given the same attention, direction is lost.
There is just such deafening blandness to be found in State of Play. It very much reminds me of Firewall, a nonsensical thriller where the actors showed up to collect paychecks. But to Firewall’s credit, it has a slightly more satisfying conclusion. As for State of Play, I didn’t have a tough time “figuring it out” despite the sophomoric script’s failure to provide sensible clues. State of Play is far less entertaining than it’s unrelated cooked up title suggests, and it was previously a miniseries. Should have stayed one. **
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