Review of Spotlight (2015) by Foxgrove — 10 Feb 2016

Slow, surprisingly muted and almost overwhelmingly disappointing. This year’s Oscar front runner for best picture deals with The Boston Globe newspaper’s expose of the dirty dealings and hypocrisies of the Catholic Church.

More specifically it hones in on the sexual molestation of young boys by Catholic priests. However, despite this controversial hot potato of a subject the film seriously lacks any raw power or urgency.

Instead it is content to have its leading investigators amble from meeting to meeting obtaining information rather too easily. Things aren’t helped by the lack of an emotional hook. The victims interviewed are all adults and come across as basic stock characters shouldering all the worst lines of dialogue like ‘Who can say no to god’.

Lines like this are so phony that one winces with embarrassment. Anyone who has seen ‘All the President’s Men’ or Netflix’s current ‘Making a Murderer’ will know that films exposing evil or corruption can be nerve jinglingly tense and emotively powerful, but Mark Ruffalo’s annoying depiction of righteous anger just doesn’t cut it.

Where the film does succeed is in keeping viewer interest in a subplot as to who in Spotlight’s department was responsible, and therefore complicit, in burying the story years earlier. Performance wise the Oscar nominated turns of both Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams seem quite conventional and uninteresting, whereas the actors in smaller parts; Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup and John Slattery all fare much better.

The ‘Spotlight’, however, does shine on one person; Michael Keaton. For an actor who is often guilty of being way over the top he is here at his most understated. It is more than fair to say that he single handedly elevates ‘Spotlight’ to a level way above the mediocrity of the rest of the film.