Wednesday 29th April

State of Play

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Year: 2009

Stars: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren

Finally, a visit to the cinema. It's been a few weeks - partly due to being busy, partly because there hasn't seemed to have been much on that looked worth paying to go to the cinema for. On the strength of this movie, there's still not.

That's not to say it's a bad film - it's just not good, or really very original. It starts out well, but slowly turns into your standard thriller with the normal types of twists and turns, many of which are relatively easy to guess. Russell Crowe is Cal McAffrey, a journalist investigating the murder of two people. Meanwhile, Ben Affleck plays Rep. Stephen Collins, a politician who has been having a love affair with a girl who has just died. Collins and McAffrey are old college friends, and how their stories connect makes up the majority of this conspiracy thriller.

The film's not unwatchable, although the sound did annoy me at first - Russell Crowe's scenes were noticeably quieter than the others. This may just have been a problem with the cinema I was in, but it felt like a misguided attempt to make Russell Crowe appear softly spoken. Disregarding that, this would be fine for a Saturday night in front of the TV, but I like my cinema visits to be a little more, well, different.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5