I liked STATE OF PLAY. It ticked all of the right boxes: solid direction, good, playing-against-type performances from most of the cast, unforeseen twists and some great set-pieces, including a ferocious encounter in an underground car park.

Do I think it's a truly great film? No, not by a long shot. It's inventive, and well-paced, and one of those films that stimulates the brain as well as the senses, but...I didn't find much emotion at the heart. A similar thriller like David Fincher's ZODIAC really grabbed me with its depiction of Jake Gyllenhaal's dedicated journalist, but there's little emotion at the core of STATE OF PLAY. It's too busy with the mystery stuff and the ending just left me cold.

Russell Crowe gives one of his most interesting performances to date as the long-haired, tubby journalist and the aforementioned scene in the underground car park sees him play isolated and frightened, a real counterpoint to his usual tough 'n' taciturn type performances. The rest of his obsessive-y type stuff has been previously done in American GANGSTER.

Ben Affleck is surprisingly good as the shady politician, and it's refreshing to see him playing a character with a bit more depth for a change. Speaking of depth, Rachel McAdams is the one weak link in the chain, completely out of hers, while Helen Mirren seems to be trying too hard to emulate Meryl Streep in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA for the majority of her scenes.

A druggie thief is gunned down in a dark tunnel along with a pizza delivery guy on a bicycle by a mysterious assassin with a suitcase. The delivery guy survives. Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is a gruff cynical beat reporter checking out the story. Meanwhile a young female staff to congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) dies falling off the subway platform. Collins is assumed to have had an affair with that aide. Ambitious young writer Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) from the newspaper's online side wants to write something about Collins. McAffrey was Collins' college roommate. As Cal investigates, he uncovers a complicated corrupt Washington political system and a connection between the thief and the political aide.

There are great actors being directed by the first rate Kevin Macdonald. There are all kinds of things being jammed into this. There is the newspaper world. There is the Washington political world. There is the military industrial complex. There is an assassin. There is personal history between the characters. It is a lot but Macdonald keeps it all understandable. Russell Crowe keeps the story moving with the attention on him. It's a firecracker thriller although it is a little long.

Based on a British mini-series, State Of Play is a top rate political thriller that asks some very interesting questions about what President Eisenhower called the military industrial complex. The problem is that Congressman Ben Affleck who is asking those questions at a hearing involving those private security firms that the USA employs in Iraq and Afghanistan has some nasty secrets of his own of a personal nature. Those threaten to derail Affleck's investigation.

It seems as though Congressman Ben has got himself involved with a female staffer shades of Gary Condit and she was shoved under the Washington, DC Metro.

Affleck has a friend in investigative reporter Russell Crowe, they were college roommates back in the day. If anyone can clear him, Crowe can providing Affleck is really being truthful in all things. Crowe has some problems too, he's got an eager young reporter looking for the sensational in Rachel McAdams on the same paper, a publisher in Helen Mirren looking for some quick results as other Capitol Hill reporters draw a bead on the story. And if that's not enough, Crowe's been having a little side action with Robin Wright Penn who is Mrs. Affleck.

It sounds like a soap opera, but actually State Of Play is a very intelligent political drama and if you think you know how it will end, I'm here to assure you this film will twist your mind like a pretzel. Yet the script is clear enough so you can follow the many plot twists.

Three other good performances to note are Jason Bateman as a publicity agent and part time pimp, Jeff Daniels as a moralizing older Congressman, and Michael Berresse a former soldier who might be the most moral person in the film. That fact proves to be his undoing.

The questions State Of Play asks are real ones about the government's over reliance on these private security firms to deal with terrorists. I highly recommend you see this very disturbing film.