Who’s in it?: Ben Affleck (Armageddon, The Town), Russell Crowe (Gladiator, L.A. Confidential), Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes, Mean Girls), Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, Teen Wolf Too) and Helen Mirren (The Queen, National Treasure: Book of Secrets)

Written by: Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Identity, Michael Clayton, The Cutting Edge)

Guess what?  I’m not going to bash this movie.  I probably could but I’m not.  I actually liked it.  Probably because it kinda flew under the radar when it came out, despite the fact that it’s loaded with top notch actors.  It stars Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams who are reporters working on two separate cases and come to find out the cases are intertwined.  Ben Affleck is a Congressman who may or may not know more about a murder than he is letting on.

State of Play is written by Tony Gilroy, who wrote the Bourne movies and Michael Clayton; and is one of my favorite writers in Hollywood right now.  Come on, the dude wrote The Cutting Edge.  You know you love that shit.  Oh, come on, you know what I’m talking about:  Hockey player and figure skater team up to become an Olympic hopeful pairs skating duo but they have to over come their differences and learn about each other before they can— look, you know you know what fucking movie I’m talking about and I know you know you know that I know you know what movie I’m talking about it.  It’s a good movie.  Toe pick.

But I digress… The point is, that it’s a State of Play is a well written movie even if it is kind of slow paced.  But it’s the kind of slow pace where there is always something happening even though it doesn’t seem like it.  Oh, right…it’s called plot.  You’ll have to fucking pay attention to it.  Sorry.  It’s a good movie if you’re into political thrillers but let’s be honest, they’re all pretty much the fucking same, aren’t they?  Deadbeat reporters that everyone has given up on has a murder mystery thrown in his lap and knows there’s something rotten in Denmark.

Affleck is good.  Dude gets a bad rap.  Russell Crowe isn’t a total douche bag in it either, which is quite a shocker isn’t it.  He usually comes off as one.  Maybe that dude gets a bad rap, too.  But he did hit that guy with that phone once.  But maybe the guy deserved it.  Crowe was pretty bad ass as Maximus in Gladiator and do you remember Virtuosity?  What the fuck was up with that movie?  It was like The Matrix before The Matrix was cool, except it wasn’t cool like The Matrix.

7/10

Would I recommend this movie?:  If you’re into movies about political conspiracies and reporters and investigations then yes.  Like I said, it’s well acted.  But it’s not for everyone.  Then again, what movie is?