State of Play

Russell Crowe's latest star vehicle came and went so fast last spring that it felt like a hit-and-run accident. But if the film's box office wreckage has you thinking that it's another Proof of Life-style turd, guess again. State of Play is a whip-smart, well-acted conspiracy thriller that will remind you of 1970s classics like The Parallax View and All the President's Men. Crowe is fantastic as a grizzled, old-school D.C. reporter who teams up with a sassy, new-school blogger (Rachel McAdams) to investigate the suspicious death of a smarmy senator's mistress. Ben Affleck supplies that smarm in spades. The story's twists and switchbacks keep coming. And if there's one too many toward the end, well, it's hard to argue with too much of a good thing. The EXTRAS are a tad sparse on the disc: just a few deleted scenes and a making-of doc. A–

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