State of Play - state of affairs

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Movie
German title State of Play - state of affairs
Original title State of Play
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2009
length 127 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Kevin Macdonald
script Matthew Michael Carnahan ,
Tony Gilroy ,
Billy Ray
production Andrew Hauptman ,
Tim Bevan ,
Eric Fellner
music Alex Heffes
camera Rodrigo Prieto
cut Justine Wright
occupation

State of Play is a 2009 American political thriller directed by Kevin Macdonald.

action

Republican Congressman Stephen Collins is his party's hope and future - a promising and honorable newcomer. Among other things, he heads a parliamentary committee of inquiry into privatizations in the defense and security sector. He has his sights particularly on the private security company PointCorp, which is aiming for further lucrative government contracts. When Sonia Baker, the committee's specialist, falls in front of an incoming subway train, the married politician finds himself in a precarious situation because he was having an affair with the attractive woman.

His old college friend Cal McAffrey has made a name for himself as an investigative reporter for the Washington Globe newspaper. Many years ago he had a brief relationship with the politician's current wife. McAffrey is initially working on a story about the murder of a drug addict who, as Cal finds out, financed his use by stealing and reselling bags and briefcases, stealing a bag containing photos of Collins' assistant with a stranger in a coffee shop. Cal's colleague Della Frye, a blogger for the Globe online service, is working on the death of Sonia Baker. When Cal finally connects this with the murder of the drug addict, Cal is set by his editor-in-chief Cameron on Stephen Collins and his possible relationship with the deceased.

After initial friction between the two journalists - he an old school reporter, she a blogger of the online generation - they get together in the course of their research and are able to uncover a political and economic intrigue. In doing so, they are repeatedly targeted by the alleged killer and in disputes with well-known politicians.

A photo in an old newspaper finally brings Cal McAffrey on the trail of the killer: Stephen Collins had noticed a change in Sonia Baker's behavior and had her shadowed by a comrade from the second Gulf War , ex-corporal Bingham. Bingham felt obliged to Collins because he had saved his life in the war. The mentally unstable Bingham found out that Sonia had been smuggled into Collins as a PointCorp agent, and therefore pushed her outside the subway without Collins knowing. What both did not know: Sonia had stopped her spying activity because she had fallen in love with Stephen and was pregnant by him.

When McAffrey finds out about this, he calls the police. This intervenes at the moment when Bingham tries to shoot McAffrey to protect Collins. McAffrey writes his article in Della Fryes and his name and they both leave the publishing house together.

The credits show how the newspaper is printed.

background

The script for the film is based on the six-part British mini-series State of Play (Eng. Murder on page one ) from the pen of the author Paul Abbott. It was first broadcast on May 18, 2003 on the BBC ; Directed by David Yates . The producer Andrew Hauptman was able to secure the film rights for a story based on the material of the series after several meetings with Abbott in 2004. According to Hauptman, however, it turned out to be tedious and complicated to reduce a series with a total of six hours of running time to a two-hour movie. This was also the reason why the production ultimately took so long.

In addition to the criminal machinations of politics and business, the problems of traditional newspapers due to the emerging Internet boom are also discussed. This conflict is symbolized by the meeting of McAffrey, the old-school investigative journalist , and his young, dynamic, but also superficial blogger colleague.

The dubious activities of the PointCorp company were interpreted by some critics as a clear allusion to events involving the Halliburton and Blackwater corporations during the tenure of President George W. Bush .

Reviews

“After a long start-up time, the right people have found each other at State Of Play: Paul Abott's BBC series is a great template, which three incredibly good authors themselves have implemented into a strong, independent script. There is also a director who was able to give shape to the cinematic vision and the great ensemble. Kevin Macdonald is not reinventing the political thriller with 'State Of Play', but he presents us with an extremely exciting representative of his profession and also offers a clever commentary on the current situation in politics, business and the media. "

- Björn Helbig : Filmstarts.de

“Director Kevin Macdonald, Oscar winner with his documentary 'One Day in September', has managed to keep the basic constellation of the roughly five and a half hour BBC series and to condense the whole thing into two hours of exciting political thriller entertainment. Smaller logical holes can never be completely avoided in such complex matter, but the narrative flow conceals the deficit quite skillfully. 'State of Play' can withstand comparison with genre classics such as 'Die Unbrechlichen'. "

- TV movie

“A political thriller that draws its tension less from action than from a cleverly constructed plot and precisely characterized characters. The closeness to reality of the scenarios and characters created contributes to the sharpness of the conspiracy story. "

- Lexicon of international film

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for State of Play - state of the art . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2009 (PDF; test number: 117 587 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for State of Play . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ^ A b Hanns-Georg Rodek : Profit versus principle. In: Berliner Morgenpost , June 18, 2009.
  4. ^ State of Play> Film Starts Critique. In: filmstarts.de , accessed on October 22, 2011.
  5. ↑ State of Play. In: tvspielfilm.de , accessed on October 22, 2011.
  6. ↑ State of Play. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used