Review of State of Play (2009) by Steve — 30 Jul 2009

Ninety-five percent of this movie is a smart, engrossing, well-acted thriller. I wasn't crazy about how it was shot -- too much washed out color and hand-held camera for this type of story -- but the script was tight and the performances good.

Then came the ending. Without giving away what happens, let me just say that it's hard to imagine how a film this big makes it through all the studio execs and test screenings without somebody realizing that the ending simply doesn't make sense.

I spent a good amount of time trying to go back through the events and figure out how the various characters knew what they supposedly did, but it doesn't come together. Then I went online and found that it doesn't make sense to anyone else either.

It's really too bad, because this could have been a great movie if they'd just left it alone. It didn't even need the extra twist which wound up killing the overall experience.