State Of Play
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 03:04PM ;)
Like I said, I went to the Premier of this in Leicester Square a few weeks ago. I haven’t reviewed it till now because you’re all a bunch of feckless idiots not worthy of my time. Anyway, I’d never been to a Premier before - so there’s me strolling up the red carpet, looking like Chewbacca on vacation, amongst big-titted page three girls, piss-ugly Z-List “celebrities” and a throng of paparazzi snapping away like Rage-infected zombies in 28 Days Later (the irony of this will be apparent later). We took our seats (complimentary bar of chocolate and a bottle of water – fuck me, these celebs really know how to live) and proceeded to sit for an hour waiting for Russell Crowe and Helen Mirren to put down their piss-warm beers and grace us with their presence. Both Crowe’s and Mirren’s speeches were short and funny, but I just wanted to get on with it so I could get a kebab on the way home. Eventually the lights came down and the curtain went up...
Crime reporter, Cal McCaffrey (Russell Crowe), stumbles upon a case of corporate sly-winking usery when he is called upon by old college friend and Congressman, Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of his assistant and (possible) mistress.
This was originally a vehicle for Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, that would’ve seen them together for the first time since Fight Club (1999). However, Brad pulled out because of the writers’ strike. He was replaced by Russell Crowe. Pitt’s departure delayed the start of shooting and made Norton unavailable as he was committed to shooting another film. He was replaced by Ben Affleck. In many ways, the Pitt/Norton combo would’ve made a better film because there’s no fucking way Crowe and Affleck were ‘old college buddies’.
Anyway, back to the film. Based on the excellent BBC TV mini-series of the same name, State Of Play is a pretty darn good 1970s-style paranoid thriller. Russell Crowe is in “fat hairy fuck” mode here, and it suits him – he's great in this – grumpy, cynical, fat and hairy. Rachel McAdams is fucking hot, as is Robin Wright Penn (in an old woman, fingered your mate’s mum, kinda way). Both Helen Mirren and Ben Affleck are excellent, the brilliant Jason Bateman also crops up in the final third, to inject a healthy dose of humor and energy, playing the role of a pill-head PR agent. Well directed, well acted, well written; State Of Play is consistently good. It won’t be for everyone – conspiracies always take a little “leap of faith” and if you don’t like politics, you’ll get fuck all out of it.
However, State Of Play is a rare treat in cinema today. The saturation of media coverage in the last 20-years has led most of us to an overwhelming mis-trust of journalists, on the hole. Back in the All The Presidents Men / Parallax View days, we believed reporters fearlessly sniffed out corruption and sought to bring down the establishment – now all they do is reinforce it, whipping up emotional controversy, where there is none, for soft-headed morons who care more about who their favourite retarded celeb is fucking or what colour underwear Michelle Obama is wearing when it’s “Game Day for the Crimson Tide”. The irony, watching photographers and journos falling over each others’ dicks to get the “scoop” on a bunch of fame-crawlers waiting to go into a film about journalistic integrity, wasn’t lost on me and I think that made State Of Play that much better.
Worth the free chocolate at least out of 5
Reader Comments (2)
Would totally do Rachel McAdams.
Now that's a fucking great film review!