State of Play

In all fairness, I only saw this movie trying to kill time waiting on some better movies to get here. So far there's no Wolverine, no Star Trek, that new Jamie Foxx/Robert Downey movie,etc. So this one looked like a decent bet. I was wrong.

I simply don't get this movie. It was ridiculous, overly long, quite boring most of the time, and maybe Movie of the Week level. Russell Crowe stars as a fat, sloppy, stereotypical packrat journalist with long hair. The script is written so he ends up being hero, the coolest guy in the room, the guy all the gorgeous girls either slept with or want to sleep with, he's just the Cat's Pajamas. But why? He's horrid looking, not at all clever, pompous, not talented, and gets a bunch of people killed over his bad choices. It makes no sense that this person is idolized in this movie, except that it was written in Crowe's contract that way.

Ben Affleck does some decent acting as a Congressman. Boy did he lose weight for this role, too! He's lean. His pretty little staff member is killed and there's a whole scandal *yawn* and lots of running around by Crowe and his little dewy eyed sidekick, the young kid who runs the Internet portion of the newspaper - played by Rachel McAdams ('Red Eye'). She did a fine job of looking naive, young, innocent and sweet.

Jason Bateman ('Arrested Development') steals the show. His part is woefully small but he upstages everyone with his performance. Not sure if it alone is worth the price of admission, but he did offer a bright spot in the whole dragging thing.

Robin Wright Penn ('Oleander') was good to see in this as the Congressman's wife. She did a decent job with what they gave her to do.

Helen Miren ('The Queen') is slumming here, trying to be the hard hitting, foul but kind of sweet mouthed ball breaking editor. It's an odd fit.

I simply didn't like this movie. The biggest problem with it was this - at least 6 different times I actually said the next line before the actor said it. :\ Nope, I'm not psychic. It's just that cliche of a movie. They weren't even lines that were in the trailer.

It was forgotten before I even threw away the empty popcorn bag. It gets a '2'.

Pueblo Tinseltown was good - popcorn was fresh.