State of Play Review – I love Russell Crowe

Movie: State of Play * Trailer * Official Site	In Theaters: April 17, 2009
Runtime: 127 minutes	Directed by: Kevin Macdonald
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence, language including sexual references, and brief drug content	Gecko Rating:

You know, it doesn’t really matter what the movie is. If it features Russell Crowe, I’ll go see it and probably love it. He’s such a good actor, so good that I have to remind myself that he’s playing a character and isn’t actually that person. He does that again with Cal McAffrey, the character he plays in "State of Play."

Cal’s a hardcore investigative journalist at the Washington Globe who’s caught in the middle of a touchy scandal. It centers on a longtime friend of his, Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), whose staffer Sonia Baker (Maria Thayer) is killed via jumping – or was she pushed? — into the path of an oncoming subway.

We know the answer to that from the beginning, and we get to ride along on Crowe’s journalist train to figure out why it happened. The plot involves the military, a corporate cover-up, and a private security agency named PointCorp, which appears to be the front-runner in the country’s national security system. Some ripped-from-the-headlines stuff there.

There’s some standout performances in this movie: Helen Mirren plays the Globe’s feisty, no-nonsense editor; Robin Wright Penn plays the congressman’s wife, who sinks into desperation after learning of her husband’s affair with Baker; Jason Bateman is a smarmy guy who’s connected to the scandal; Jeff Daniels plays politician George Fergus; and Rachel McAdams is Della Frye, a green-behind the ears Globe blogger who works with Cal on the case. I love her!

It’s a conspiracy movie that has you guessing all the way through. I saw it with my 14-year-old son, and we both loved it and were talking about it all the way home. Plus, he was so impressed with Russell Crowe that he watched "3:30 to Yuma" that night – another favorite movie of mine. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.

"State of Play" could have been a lesser movie – there’s only so much you can do with government conspiracy, informants, and assassins – but the great lineup of actors makes this worth seeing. And seeing Crowe as a long-haired, grizzled reporter driving around in an ancient Saab is worth the price of admission alone.

Photo Credits: © Universal Studios