State of Play makes a journalist (Russell Crowe) the hero in a corporate/political thriller that tries very hard. Sometimes, the movie succeeds. But with its reconciliation of the hard-core newspaperman and the young blogger and the final credits rolling over whirring presses as the newspaper prints the damning truth…State of Play felt like the modern re-make of All the Presidents’ Men that it is, with an elegy for the newspaper woven in.
Metacritic offers a just better than mediocre 64. Two weeks after seeing the movie, I’d agree… it’s slipped a few points for me since my original reaction.