Russell Crowe Stars in a Thriller About Journalism and Politics
Russell Crowe gives a strong performance as the scruffy hero in State of Play (2009), and he is ably supported by a topnotch cast that includes Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Jason Bateman, Robin Wright Penn and Jeff Daniels. The film was directed by Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland). State of Play has some ripped-from-the-headlines story elements, yet it is at heart a 1970s-style political thriller. But at times the movie has an elegiac tone as it tells a tale that takes place during the dying days of the notion that news should be printed on paper.
Set in Washington, DC, the story in State of Play involves murder, sex, money and corruption. The main character is Cal McAffrey (Crowe), an old-school reporter who writes for the print edition of the fictional Washington Globe. Another employee at the Globe, but on the online side, is a young, eager blogger named Della Frye (McAdams). Cal and Della team up to investigate some unusual killings, and they're pressured by their hardnosed editor (Mirren) to churn out articles fast because the new owners insist that the newspaper must make a profit.
Links soon emerge between the killings and US Congressman Stephen Collins (Affleck), who is holding hearings on PointCorp, a private company that has been awarded big government contracts to conduct paramilitary operations. As Cal and Della get deeper into their investigation, they encounter some sleazy people, and they have to avoid being gunned down. The plot has lots of twists and turns.
Making-Of Featurette and Deleted Scenes
The State of Play DVD contains a serviceable 19-minute making-of documentary. The movie was based on a 2003 BBC television serial that aired in six hour-long episodes. We also learn that filming in Washington is so difficult that only about a third of the movie was shot there, but the capital city did provide some offbeat locations like the Mount Pleasant neighborhood where Cal lives and Ben's Chili Bowl where he eats. The newspaper in the film was patterned after the Washington Post, whose metro editor was employed as a consultant. The movie's final shot of a newspaper going to press was made at the Post's printing plant in Springfield, Virginia.
The DVD also has a pair of deleted scenes with a total runtime of less than four minutes. They are well done and interesting, and were presumably cut for pacing. One shows the congressman's wife (Robin Wright Penn) speaking at a press conference about her husband's infidelity. The other has Della interviewing a trashy young woman who claims she and her roommate were both having sex with the congressman.
DVD Details
Below I have listed all the details for the DVD containing State of Play.
Release Date: September 1, 2009
Feature Film Runtime: 2 hours 7 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for Some Violence, Language Including Sexual References and Brief Drug Content
Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, Color
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
Spanish-Dubbed Soundtrack
French-Dubbed Soundtrack
English Captions for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Spanish Subtitles
French Subtitles
Deleted Scenes (2 scenes, total runtime = 4 min.)
The Making of State of Play (19 min.)