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"Ode to newspaper ink-covered fingers"

"State of Play" is, in many ways, a relic. It is a political thriller with the requisite twists and turns, but it is old school in portraying the main players as flawed characters, but with a clearer moral sense of right and wrong. The underlying conspiracy plot is all about greed and career advancement and the heroes doggedly seek the truth, in a clever plot that doesn't muddy any messages. It is also a relic in that it's the rare film these days that focuses on journalism and investigative reporting, and films it in a positive light.

All too often films portray reporters as sleaze hounds or shameless paparazzi, looking for a quick quote or soundbite to draw in readers/viewers and then fill the story with either insubstantial speculation or worse, outright lies. The strength of the script, by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray, based on the BBC television series by Paul Abbott, is that it plays up to the fact that a lot of journalism today has been reduced to soundbites and borderline tabloid style reports. The days of good, old-fashioned investigative reporting is going the way of the printed newspaper itself: into the trash can.

"State of Play" is an ode to the old days of nose-to-the-grindstone in-depth print coverage, big stories that take days or even weeks to cover and require a good reporter to use any and all possible friends or contacts as sources, perhaps as the cost of rewarding personal relationships. It is the slavish attention to facts and sources that show the dedication of this branch of journalism, that in both the film and the real world is beaten to the punch by the bloggers who can take any tidbit of information and post a fluffy, "sexy" story about it within minutes, as well as cable news pundits who grab attention through flashy buzz words, before any conclusive investigation is done.

Cal McAffrey (Oscar winner Russell Crowe) is one of those old school reporters. He has seen the priorities of his paper, the Washington Globe (the cinematic equivalent of the Post) become more interested in the bottom line than in true in-depth reporting. He even must put up with an upstart blogger on the paper's online site Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) who can outpost him on little more than a few bits of info. Soon, their respective stories clash. Frye learns that the assistant (and mistress) of Congressman Stephen Collins (Oscar winner Ben Affleck) has dies and may have been murdered, instead of the initially

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