State of Play (2009)

This was another good political thriller.
Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is a journalist. His old college roommate is Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) who is working on a proposal to investigate the corporation Point Corp, who have some very bad operations in the works. But Stephen has a problem. A big one. One of his aides who would help his committee with research has died in a tragic freak accident on the subway. Sonia Baker (Maria Thayer) is dead and she was romantically involved. Not to mention, two men were killed the night before. Well, only one of the men was actually killed, the other would die the next night, just as he was recovering from his injuries.
The plot, as in most thrillers, is complicated. But this is also investigative journalism in this film. The Washington Globe is the newspaper where Cal works and it is under new management, though the editor, Cam (Helen Mirren) is a hardass and determined to sell the paper but she sure does protect her reporters. When Cal is given some evidence in the briefcase of one of the killed men, there are pictures of Sonia Baker. They (the girl and DeSean, who was killed) were just people who stole backpacks and briefcases and sold them to their owners. The photos, however, were vital evidence that should have been handed over to police as they could have then stopped the second shooting that killed the pizza delivery guy. See, I told you this is complicated.
There is a man who appears in the seized pictures of Sonia. His name is Dominic Foy (Jason Bateman, great). He is in PR, but he also gave Sonia's name to Point Corp, but then Sonia, who was supposed to spy on Stephen, fell in love with him. And (fulfilling one of my predictions), she was pregnant and didn't know what to do. Stephen doesn't take that news well, furious at his friend to having to hear it. Oh, I didn't mention that Stephen is still married to his college sweetheart, whom Cal also occasionally sleeps with, Anne Collins (Robin Wright Penn). Yeah, love triangle.
Stephen finally comes clean (or so you think) and tells Cal all the information that Sonia could have gotten her hands on. But Anne blows it, saying that this woman was paid $26,000 per month to sleep with her husband. That triggers something in Cal's head. And, if you really think about it, it doesn't make sense. Turns out, as Cal goes to talk to Stephen some more, Stephen knew that something was wrong with Sonia, so he hired one of his mentally unstable friends from the military to follow her, not to kill her, but the mentally unstable Robert Bingham (Michael Berresse) pushed her in front of the train. Busted.
All this while, Cal is also investigating Point Corp, the corrupt corporation. Stephen was told to hire Sonia by the Majority Whip from West Virginia, George Fergus (Jeff Daniels) who first tells Stephen to lay low and fix things with his wife after news of the affair breaks. This is another thing I predicted would come true. But George isn't responsible for the deaths of four people (the homeless girl who just wants a soda also dies). Stephen is.
Adding to the mix is Della Fry (Rachel McAdams) a newbie blogger whom Cal is sort of forced to work with. They get along better and better as the film moves along, though I don't think a romantic future will ever happen for the two of them. He doesn't like the new stuff, his car is from 1990, but he eventually comes to appreciate everything she's done on the story. She investigated the crap of the story and put her sole into it.
There is some great acting, and there is with great editing and cinematography in this film. I do have a problem with the casting. Though Wright Penn, Crowe and Affleck are great in their respective roles, they are not believable as college classmates as Crowe and Affleck are eight years apart. There is also more chemistry between Wright Penn and Crowe than Wright Penn and Affleck, also a problem. Yet, they are great but that problem is too glaring to overlook. Bateman shines in his rare meaty role, though he doesn't have many scenes. McAdams also proves that she is more than a pretty face, saying a lot with just rising an eyebrow. Of course, Mirren is brilliant. There is also the glaring plot hole that needs to be dealt with. Please let me know if I missed something. That problem took the film's grade down. And that's a shame as this film was a true thriller, plus I love films with investigative journalism, with suspenseful music making the scenes tense to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats. Grade: B+