State of Play (2009)

Good movie, great cast and interesting plot.

A movies as they used to be when interesting thrillers were on the screens with higher frequency.

This movie follows a familiar subset of the thriller genre, that of the journalist investigating a story and discovering there is more involved than what meets the eye, and before he knows it there is evidence of a conspiracy stretching high into government. How high? Well, that of course varies from one conspiracy movie to the next.

I couldn’t help but notice that one of the methods of death early on here was later borrowed by the series House of Cards (U.S. version). But there are only so many ways of making possible murders look like accidents or suicides, so perhaps it was coincidental. The acting and the writing were fine, however familiar the story seemed. It just felt like it wouldn’t have taken much originality to alter the plot to separate it from all the other journalistic investigations of government corruption.

78/100

Two reporters working on seemingly unrelated stories discover they're connected in a big way reaching well into the halls of congress. This is an exciting political thriller that maintains its intensity throughout despite being devoid of any sort of action to speak of. An exceptional all-star cast, you'd be hard pressed to see someone you didn't recognize. It's biggest strength is its ability to present an amazingly complex and ever evolving story without once losing the viewer with fantastic writing and acting. Best of its kind since "All the President's Men", imo. -- DrNostromo.com