State of Play

Theatrical Release Date: 2008 (USA) / 2009 04 17 (USA)

UPC: 025195040075

Studio: Universal Studios

MPAA Rating: PG13   Contains:[Violence, Profanity, Drug Content]

Summary: The Last King of Scotland director Kevin McDonald teams with screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan for this American adaptation of the hit British miniseries concerning the suspicious circumstances that set a rising congressman and a dogged reporter on a dangerous collision course. U.S. congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is handsome, unflappable, and ascending the ladder of power with unprecedented speed. He's the future of his political party, and as the chairman of a committee assigned to oversee defense spending, he's got all the right connections. As the presidential race draws near, Washington insiders begin to speculate that Collins will earn his party's nomination for the country's top job. The prospect of Collins becoming president seems less and less likely, however, when his research assistant/mistress is viciously murdered, and some unsavory truths begin to surface. Collins was once a close friend to Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), now a top reporter in the nation's capital. Assigned the task of investigating Collins by his ruthless editor, Cameron (Oscar winner Helen Mirren), McAffrey recruits fellow reporter Della (Rachel McAdams) in order to track down the truth and identify the killer. But McAffrey has just walked into a cover-up of unprecedented proportions, and in a game where billions of dollars are at stake, life, love, and integrity are luxuries that simply cannot be afforded. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Drama

Features: Deleted scenes
The Making of State of Play: Take a behind-the-scenes look at creating State of Play with director Kevin McDonald and cast members Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams

State of Play

Format: DVD

Release Date: 09/01/2009

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 128 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,Spanish,French

Subtitles: English,Spanish,French

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- State of Play
1. Investigative Reporting [5:39]
2. Congressional Hearing [3:22]
3. Breaking News [6:09]
4. Plausible Alternative [4:52]
5. Gathering Facts [8:51]
6. Substantiating Evidence [5:42]
7. Military Connection [7:11]
8. A Couple of Questions [4:15]
9. Blood On Your Hands [5:32]
10. Digging Deeper [4:43]
11. Inside Information [5:19]
12. Just a Source [5:24]
13. Lethal Lead [6:09]
14. Going to Press [2:26]
15. Working the Slant [3:02]
16. The Other Side [9:04]
17. Corporate Cover-Up [6:48]
18. For the Record [3:33]
19. Truth Be Told [7:35]
20. End Titles [12:10]

Jason Buchanan

Director Kevin Macdonald successfully revives the 1970s-style paranoid thriller with State of Play, a taut and assured reworking of the 2003 BBC series of the same name. Paring down the original six-hour series to a lean 127 minutes, Macdonald and screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, and Billy Ray barely give the audience a moment to breathe as a veteran reporter and a doe-eyed blogger race through the streets of Washington, D.C., to uncover an ominous political conspiracy. The story gets under way with two seemingly unrelated incidents: the morning after a low-level drug dealer and a pizza deliveryman are gunned down in a dark alley, a congressman's aide is pushed in front of a moving subway train. When the latter is reported as a suicide by the media, speculations of foul play begin to emerge after the aide's boss, rising U.S. congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), tearfully announces her death on live television. Collins' old college roommate is Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), a reporter for the Washington Globe, who openly resents the preferential treatment given to inexperienced underlings like Washington Globe Capitol Hill blogger Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). As the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending, Congressman Collins is currently on a campaign against rogue government contractors profiting from the "Muslim terror gold rush" abroad. Beholden to no one, these contractors seem increasingly poised to make their presence known in the U.S., where they are gradually gaining a foothold. When McAffrey discovers that the deceased aide was in fact Congressman Collins' primary researcher in the case against the government contractors, suspicions of conspiracy lead him on a treacherous investigation pointing to corruption at the highest levels of government. State of Play is the kind of thriller that starts with a bang and throws in enough twists to tie your brain in knots as the layers of deception are stripped away to pose some genuinely frightening questions: Are we already at the point where independent defense contractors can gun down American citizens within the U.S. without fear of repercussion? If so, how could this have happened while U.S. citizens remain fatally unaware? And what could entice soldiers who once defended their country abroad to now set their crosshairs on innocent Americans? Is it really all about the money? Unfortunately for McAffrey and Frye, the answers to these questions may come at the cost of their own lives; the stakes are high from the very first scene, and while Carnahan, Gilroy, and Ray smartly inject some tension-breaking humor into the mix, the primary focus of the screenplay is to keep viewers constantly guessing as they chew their cuticles raw. Thanks to some stylish directing by Macdonald, clever cutting by editor Justine Wright, an occasionally dissonant score by composer Alex Heffes, and a stellar cast, the end product is a tightly coiled thriller that recalls such landmark films as Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View and All the President's Men. And by cleverly raising questions about print versus online media, the screenwriters manage to instill the tried-and-true political thriller with a satisfying contemporary twist. While the primary players are all in top form, it's supporting performances by Helen Mirren, Robin Wright Penn, and Jason Bateman that make State of Play compulsively watchable. Bateman in particular injects the film with a healthy dose of humor and energy in the third act, when he appears in the role of a pill-head PR agent who could hold the key to blowing the entire investigation wide open. A rare treat for cinema lovers starved for the days when scruffy newspaper reporters fearlessly sniffed out corruption, State of Play delivers the kind of conspiratorial thrills that would have made Pakula proud. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Kevin Macdonald  Director 
Billy Ray  Screenwriter 
Tim Bevan  Producer 
Eric Fellner  Producer 
Tony Gilroy  Screenwriter 
Liza Chasin  Executive Producer 
Debra Hayward  Executive Producer 
E. Bennett Walsh  Executive Producer 
Alex Heffes  Composer (Music Score) 
Andrew Hauptman  Producer 
Paul Abbott  Executive Producer 
Matthew Michael Carnahan  Screenwriter 
Russell Crowe  Actor 
Ben Affleck  Actor 
Rachel McAdams  Actor 
Helen Mirren  Actor 
Robin Wright Penn  Actor 
Jason Bateman  Actor 
Jeff Daniels  Actor 
Michael Berresse  Actor 
Harry J. Lennix  Actor 
Josh Mostel  Actor 
Michael Weston  Actor 
Barry "Shabaka" Henley  Actor 
Viola Davis  Actor 
David Harbour  Actor 
Sarah Lord  Actor 
Tuck Milligan  Actor 
Stephen Park  Actor 
Brennan Brown  Actor 
Maria Thayer  Actor 
Wendy Makkena  Actor 
Zoe Lister-Jones  Actor 
Michael Jace  Actor 
Rob Benedict  Actor 
Ladell Preston  Actor 

Country: UK