State of Play bleeds and leads

In theaters Wednesday: Earth

In theaters Friday: Fighting, Obsessed, The Soloist

New on DVD and Blu-ray: Frost/Nixon, Notorious, The Wrestler

Before I get into State of Play, I wanted to give a quick heads ups to fans of NPR’s This American Life. There will be a special screening of the Ira Glass-hosted show this Thursday, April 23 at 6 p.m. at both Perkins Rowe and CitiPlace theaters.

Now, I had almost given up on Russell Crowe. Really, after 3:10 to Yuma and American Gangster, I thought he was a talented actor who had settled into the most comfortable role of all: playing Russell Crowe. In short, I thought he had Pacino’d himself. Yet here he is in State of Play, disappearing into the role of a hard-nosed, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer investigative reporter for a D.C. daily. He’s the Jack Bauer of beat writers, and like the current season of 24, here privatized armed forces provide the boogeymen. Like Bauer, he’ll do what is necessary to get the answers, and Crowe is excellent chasing the answers to the questions lingering after two seemingly unrelated deaths in the nation’s capital. One is a drug dealer. The other is the young research assistant and secret lover of Crowe’s college buddy-turned-idealistic Congressman played by Ben Affleck. Affleck heads a sub-committee investigating the practices of a multibillion-dollar Blackwater-type privatized homeland security company, so did this ambitious agency murder his assistant to scare him off their trail, or did Affleck’s risky affair with her end in her death? Crowe’s loyalty to his friend and his newspaper are both put to the test as he works frantically to uncover the truth.

Based on a six-part BBC miniseries which told a similar tale over the course of six hours, State of Play comes oversees much like Steven Soderbergh’s similarly adapted Traffic did, trying to cram a lot of plot into one sitting. As a result, the film at times feels hurried with certain loose ends left tantalizingly unresolved. State of Play, like Crowe’s writer, is on a deadline. But like some of the best newspaper writing today, the film distills several threads of information into one digestible product.

Penned by Tony Gilroy, who writes taught, excellent modern buzz films like Michael Clayton and Duplicity, State of Play’s twists and turns come from the film’s often-changing relationships. And too, this is a film of contrasts, where multiple competing worlds collide. Online vs. print media. Opinion vs. truth. Politics vs. image management. Friendship vs. career. The problem is that Crowe’s history with Affleck goes much deeper than old roommates. Crowe had an affair with Affleck’s wife, played here with a strained dignity by Robin Wright Penn. He’s also hampered initially by a tag-along cub reporter played by Rachel McAdams. She’s a blogger working for the much more successful new online division of his company, which has just been bought by a giant Rubert Murdoch-esque multinational. Butting heads with Crowe is his sharp-tongued editor played by Helen Mirren. Her silver mane, still beautiful face, and British put-downs are armed to the teeth with her new principal: Sell papers no matter what. This edict clashes with Crowe’s old school approach and McAdam’s optimistic naivete.

To his credit, Affleck plays the part of a freshman congressman well, though I do think he was miscast. Even with a hint of gray on his temples he’s too boyish looking to be Crowe’s age. One quip about Crowe’s 10-year sojourn through university could have gone a long way to establishing them as contemporaries on campus. Crowe is fantastic, but the surprise here is Jason Bateman who steals 15 minutes in the middle of the film as an over-the-top PR rep tied unfortunately to the scandal. You’ll be laughing out loud at his bizarre, me-first, metrosexual-gone-wrong shtick, and it’s a welcome change of pace for a film that occasionally feels dry and routine, like the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The fact that director Kevin MacDonald pulled as much action and suspense into the story while still maintaining a credible plot is the real story here.

And please, please, please stay seated through the final credits, one of the most brilliant, yet simple end sequences I’ve seen in years. If you do, you’ll be treated not only to a remastered, booming version of Creedence Clearwater Revivals’ southern soul classic “Long as I Can See the Light,” but also an elegiac peek at the newspaper distribution process from the writer’s computer screen to the printer to the paper to the delivery truck to the newsstand and into the hands of faithful readers. This is how the truth be told. Is it a eulogy for the dying daily newspaper? Is it a celebration of fact over fiction and justice over corruption? Maybe it’s both. Maybe that’s what makes this film a success. Because there’s breaking the rules to find the truth, and there’s breaking the rules to sell newspapers. And State of Play finds an eery but entertaining balance between the two, fashioning a tense thriller out of a profession that, if the filmmakers are to be heeded, may not be around long enough for a sequel.