State of Play

State of Play stars Russell Crowe as Cal McAffrey a journalist who is investigating a sex scandal involving his former college roommate Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck).  In true Hollywood form Cal is smarter than the Washington police force and uncovers a bigger story resulting in the privatisation of domestic security but he needs to find a named source to run his story here we are introduced to Rachel McAdams’ Della Frye who assists him in his quest i.e. to find out who is being conned and by whom.

 

The plot of State of Play isn’t really anything original but Russell Crowe can give any movie an extra something special which in an unfortunate twist of fate as Ben Affleck has the opposite effect.

 

The movie had originally cast Brad Pitt and Edward Norton two actors who do have chemistry but the chemistry between Crowe and Affleck fell flat the fact that the audience are met to believe that Ben Affleck is old enough to room with Russell Crowe is perhaps asking the audience to dispense their belief in the movies reality a tad too much.

 

Helen Mirren (being overly British with her choice of swearwords), Jeff Daniels and the ever annoying Jason Bateman make up the supporting cast.

 

Although there is nothing new in the movie you can become engrossed in the story but you will not be surprised at how it ends.

 

There were a few unintentionally funny moments, with a horrible photo-shopped army photo and Rachel McAdams regression from an intelligent reporter to Russell Crowes lap dog (at the end she went literally skipping off behind him) which interrupted the serious proceedings.

 

I would give it  7/10.  It wasn’t new.  It wasn’t fresh but it was watchable which is probably the biggest con of the whole movie.