State of Play

Having already seen the BBC mini-series also titled State of Play, it is immediately obvious that the American filmmakers paid considerable homage to their British counterparts. Very minute details of the six-part television series are reproduced quite intentionally, from the opening chase scene in the back alleys to the tear-stained press conference to the snippy editor who only begrudgingly keeps investigative journalist Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) on staff. Of course, we just saw the first fifteen minutes of this movie, so it's really hard to form a concrete opinion. It will be interesting to see how the movie will condense the rest of the plot into two hours (down from the six-hour total running time of the mini-series) when they are pretty much matching the pilot episode blow-by-blow at this point.

But one thing is for sure: the image of McAffrey driving around on his beat while warbling to country radio and shoving Cheetos down his gullet can't help but make me wonder if this is the sort of character I am destined to become.

As the plot continues, however, Crowe's character becomes more and more likable, not in spite of but because of his blunt mannerisms combined with his blue-collar expertise on the D.C. beat.