State of Play

(USA/Great Britain/France/Germany/Japan, 2009, 126 minutes)

A veteran Washington reporter finds out a drive-by shooting may be related to the apparent suicide of a congressman's assistant. Smartly handled political thriller heavily compressed from an acclaimed BBC series and translated to the US with some flair; the problem is in the compression rather than the translation, speeding far too fast through the convoluted plot to keep it under the running time.

Universal Pictures and Working Title Films present, in association with Studiocanal and Relativity Media, an Andell Entertainment production; in association with International Filmproduktion Stella-del-Sud Fourth; in association with Dentsu. Starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels; and Helen Mirren. Directed by Kevin Macdonald; produced by Andrew Hauptman, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner; screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray, based on the BBC television series written by Paul Abbott, State of Play; music by Alex Heffes; director of photography (Technicolor, Panavision), Rodrigo Prieto; production designer, Mark Friedberg; costume designer, Jacqueline West; film editor, Justine Wright.