Directed by Kevin MacDonald
This edge-of-your-seat thriller opens with two apparently unrelated incidents happening within hours of each other in crowded Washington DC. Firstly a young African American being chased through dark streets is shot, along with someone who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then early next morning a young woman on her way to work falls in front of an oncoming train and is killed. What possible link could there be between the petty criminal living on the streets and the young woman employed as a researcher on a congressional committee?
Those who saw the 2003 BBC mini-series on which the two hour film is based will know that the plot twists and conspiracies mount up along with dead bodies. The pace never slackens as the race to find out the answers becomes a battle between the police and two reporters from the Washington Globe, Cal McCaffrey (Russell Crowe) and Della Frye (Rachael McAdams). Of course the married Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) was having an affair with the young researcher, but complications arise when we find out that he roomed with McCaffrey at college and McCaffrey has a past with Collin’s wife (Robin Wright Penn).
Director of The Last King of Scotland, Kevin MacDonald, has transplanted the action from Britain to the US to create a film noir that is entrenched with the paranoia and anxieties of our modern world. While the pursuers fight over whether the discoveries amount to ‘a case’ or ‘a story’, we find that the baddies have actually been visible (and audible) since the beginning of the film. It is an interesting slant on the post-9/11 need for security as well as being an ode to the print newspaper and old fashioned investigative journalism. “The real story is the sinking of this bloody newspaper†shouts the feisty editor of the fictional newspaper (Helen Mirren).
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