State of Play

Some time back, I watched – and blogged about- the TV serial State of Play, starring John Simm and David Morrissey, which I rated pretty highly. Now I’ve watched the film version, starring Russell Crowe. Paul Abbott’s story is transferred here to the US and I didn’t expect to like the film as much as the original, but to my surprise, I did.

It’s a conspiracy thriller – a maverick journalist gets wind of a plot that involves his old friend Stephen Collins, who is now a rising politician. The fact the journalist fancies Stephen’s wife is a complication, and there are plenty of plot twists.

One flaw in the TV version was that the pace sagged in the middle - not so with the film. In the original, Collins plays a greater part than in the film, which tends to focus on Russell Crowe, who does his charismatic slob performance very effectively. The newspaper editor, brilliantly done on TV by Bill Nighy, is done differently but again very well if less quirkily by Helen Mirren.

Conspiracy thrillers tend in my opinion to be very hit and miss. But State of Play is definitely a hit. I enjoyed both versions, and can recommend them.

State of Play: review

When the film of State of Play came out, I heard about the television serial on which it was based, which I missed completely when it was screened seven years ago. But I liked the sound of it, so I bought the DVD version, and I’ve just finished watching it – something that proved to be a very enjoyable experience.

The story gets off to a dramatic start. A ruthless gunman shoots a young black man, and also fires at a passing driver who witnessed the crime. A woman dies in an accident on the Tube – but did she jump or was she pushed? She turns out to have been an assistant to a prominent back-bench MP – and they had been involved in a torrid affair. The truth about their relationship quickly comes out, and a friend and former campaign manager of the MP, who is also a top investigative journalist, starts to look into the mystery. To complicate matters further, the newshound begins an affair with the MP’s unhappy wife.

There are six episodes in all, and while the series begins quite brilliantly, I felt that episodes four and five could easily have been reduced to a single episode, since the pace flags. However, the final instalment is very good, and there is a pleasing twist to the conspiracy-thriller type of plot.

State of Play was written by Paul Abbott, one of our most successful TV writers, and he gave a fascinating account of the newspaper and political worlds. His excellent screenplay was enhanced by terrific acting. John Simm, whom I really admire as an actor, was as good as ever as the journalist, while David Morrissey was appropriately selfish as the MP. Bill Nighy’s quirky performance as the newspaper editor was marvellously conceived, and there were excellent contributions from the rest of the cast, which included Philip Glenister and the under-rated Amelia Bullmore. Recommended.