Review: "Disobedience"

“Disobedience” has a storyline that seems, at first, to be very familiar: prodigal child returns to the fold of the cloistered community they grew up in, and subsequently fled in disgrace, to find that things have not changed so very much. In this case, it’s Rachel Weisz as Ronit, who was raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish enclave in London, the only child of the revered Rav (Anton Lesser), the rabbinical leader of their kind.

Now a successful photographer, Ronit is coming home after years away -- I’m guessing around 20 -- because of the death of her father. In a powerful opening sequence, he crumples to the floor of the synagogue while delivering a passionate lesson on free will.

Her reappearance is greeted with something between tolerance and disdain. From the moment she locks eyes with Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), a youngish rabbi, we know there is great history between them. We start to read things into the story: they had a torrid affair, which perhaps caused the schism with her father, who was Dovid’s teacher and he the old man’s star pupil.

Ronit is somewhat shocked to learn that Dovid has married her childhood best friend, Esti (Rachel McAdams). But they seem happy, or at least content, and after agreeing to stay in their house, Ronit learns to accept the situation for what it is. Or at least what we think it is.

It’s another knockout performance by Weisz, who’s been wowing in smaller films for several years now. She might just have the best claim to the title of finest actress working movies today.

In virtually every scene we feel her tension, her resentment, knowing that she is constantly being looked at, spoken about, judged. It’s apparent Ronit was never formally shunned, but clearly everyone views her as the black sheep. She’s crushed when the Rav’s obituary lists him as childless.

Based upon the novel by Naomi Alderman, “Disobedience” was directed by Sebastián Lelio, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Like Lelio’s previous effort, the Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman,” this is the tale of a woman who has been relegated as an outsider, resenting this status but also thirsting to be accepted for who she is.

It’s a quietly observant movie that soaks us in the culture of strict British Judaism. For instance, Ronit’s uncle (Allan Corduner) makes his business in women’s wigs. Married women in their sect traditionally cover their hair like Muslims, though they use wigs rather than scarves. The idea is that only her husband is allowed to see her natural hair -- a form of intimacy that ventures disturbingly close to subjugation.

McAdams is very good, too, in an emotionally complex role in which Esti experiences as much turmoil as Ronit, and more intensely so.

As it turns out (spoiler warning), Ronit’s forbidden teenage romance was not with Dovid, but with Esti. Esti is forced to resolve her reawakened feelings, after having spent years trying to adhere to the role of the good Jewish wife. The two actresses’ sex scenes are astonishingly emotional, raw and erotic, despite displaying very little flesh. In contrast, Esti is often nude in Dovid’s presence, but their interactions are virtually sexless.

I was also impressed in Dovid’s portrayal. Most movies of this sort would be eager to pigeonhole him as the villain, and indeed he does not react well upon realizing what is going on underneath his own roof. Dovid is in line to succeed the Rav, so he must face a crisis of conscious of his own as a husband, a spiritual leader and a man living in a patriarchal society that demands he keep his “house in good order.”

Every one of us faces a point in life where we must decide if we are to live according to other’s expectations for us, or our own. “Disobedience” is a fine, insightful film that shows how this choice not so easy or conclusive as we might think.

Review: "Doctor Strange"

“Doctor Strange” unwittingly serves as a good stress test on the state of the superhero genre as it approaches middle age. The thinking used to be that once you got past the A-list of heroes, the Spider-Mans and Captains America, it’s hard to get anyone more than fanboys to turn out. But with offbeat characters like Deadpool and the Guardians of the Galaxy turning into huge hits, it seems that as long as you deliver an entertaining flick, people will come.

This film takes one of the oddest, most cerebral comic books ever and turns it into a bubble gum movie. It’s breezy and kooky, featuring some of the landscape-bending special effects we saw in “Inception” and turning the dial up to 11. It mixes hallucinogenic imagery with standard action movie fisticuffs.

Dr. Stephen Strange doesn’t get bitten by a spider or bathed in mutating radiation; he’s just a regular guy who becomes a sorcerer, wielding mystic energies and magical items, who travels through different planes of existence to battle creatures of dark power.

It has the most talented cast you’ve ever seen in a superhero movie: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen, Michael Stuhlbarg.

The question becomes if the mystic mumbo-jumbo replete in the Doctor Strange oeuvre sounds any better coming out of the mouths of Oscar-caliber actors: “sling rings,” the dark lord Dormammu, astral projection, Sanctums Sanctorum, the Eye of Agamotto, etc.

The answer: Not really.

Cumberbatch brings a winking charisma to the role, a guy who’s basically good but is rather full of himself. He’s an a-hole, but an a-hole in the Tony Stark mold.

The movie is directed by Scott Derrickson, known mostly for horror films, who co-wrote the script with Jon Spaihts and C. Robert Cargill. They take some pretty dark material, about an arrogant neurosurgeon who loses the use of his hands in a car accident, and continually fluff it up with humor and levity.

For instance, when Strange reaches the remote retreat of Kamar-Taj in Nepal, hoping to heal his hands, the unctuous guide, Mordo (Ejiofor) hands him a cryptic piece of paper with something scribbled on it. What is it? Strange asks. “The Wifi password. We’re not savages,” Mordo quips.

Strange is trained by the Ancient One, an Asian man in the comics but a bald Caucasian woman here played by Swinton. It’s still the typical inscrutable mentor, constantly pushing her pupil but supplying few answers about what’s really at stake.

Strange is … not very good at magic. And not just at first. When the big battle with the bad guy starts to happen, he’s still seemingly little more than a novice. His basic spells -- represented here as sigils written in fire -- fizzle out on him. But we’re supposed to believe he’s the guy to take on Kaecilius (Mikkelsen), a fallen sorcerer who wants to turn over the Earth to Dormammu and stop the flow of time?

You wonder in these movies why the “chosen one” is always a new guy. Shouldn’t it be the person who’s been honing their powers for a really long time? Wouldn’t the Ancient One’s time be better spent preparing for the final showdown instead of training some jerk doctor?

(I call this Yoda Conundrum -- as in, why would a Master send a half-trained Jedi to confront Darth Vader instead of taking him on himself?)

“Doctor Strange” is a fun movie but not a particularly smart one. It takes the easy road when it had the tools and the talent to be more ambitious. It features characters who wield mighty magic, but settles for storytelling parlor tricks.

Review: "Spotlight"

“Spotlight” is the truest depiction of journalism since… well, ever.

Even “All the President’s Men,” “Network” and “Broadcast News” -- great movies though they are -- contained a certain quotient of Hollywood BS. Here is the new standard in cinematic depictions of the journalists, along with one of the best films of the year.

This new drama depicting the Boston Globe’s discovery of a massive cover-up of sexually abusive priests never skimps on the facts, or sexes up the individual reporters and editors, or creates composite characters to skirt over the unsavory aspects of some of the real ones.

Why? Because it never has to. The real thing is compelling enough and needs no sprinkling of fictional fairy dust.

Directed by Tom McCarthy (“The Station Agent,” “Up”), who also co-wrote the screenplay with Josh Singer, “Spotlight” is a great story about the making of a great and tragic story.

McCarthy knows a little about newspapering, since he played an ethically untethered reporter in the last season of the great HBO television series, “The Wire.” Having portrayed the worst of the profession, he now shows us the best.

Unless you’ve had your head in a hole, you know where the long tail of the priest molestation story eventually went: widespread sexual abuse by clergy and a coordinated effort by the Catholic Church, nationally and internationally, to cover it up rather than end it. Even the Pope personally apologized.

Here is how the shroud first began to fall.

The most realistic thing about the movie is that it shows how big stories are rarely uncovered by a single person who has the information fall into their lap. It’s almost always a group effort, it takes weeks and months and years of arduous work, and at some point in the investigative process someone will realize they already had the information they needed all along, right under their noses. But it either got swept under the rug or ignored in the rush of daily publishing.

The heroes here are the four-member team of Spotlight, the investigative project unit at the Globe. As the story opens in 2001 a new editor is arriving at the paper, an out-of-towner named Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), who knows nothing of predominantly Catholic Boston and is an unmarried Jew, to boot. He’s given warm handshakes and cockeyed glances, both outside the newsroom and within.

Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) is the editor of the Spotlight, a self-described “player/coach” who doesn’t just sit in his office and circle misspellings. He’s a man of the town, went to the high school across the street from the Globe. He acts as the glad-hander and bridge to the city’s bastions of respectability -- who are hiding vile secrets.

Mark Ruffalo plays Michael Rezendes, the quintessential dogged reporter who seems to have little in his life beyond his phone and notebook. Rachel McAdams is Sacha Pfeiffer, who has a knack for getting people to talk, especially victims of sexual abuse. John Slattery plays Ben Bradlee Jr., the skeptical metro editor, and Brian d’Arcy James is Matt Carroll, the “glue guy” who eventually discovers that some of the accused priests have been living down the street from his family.

Stanley Tucci shines as Mitchel Garabedian, a cantankerous attorney suing the Church on behalf of dozens of victims, who is slow to be recruited to help the intrepid reporters. He’s fought many battles and lost. “I’m not crazy. I’m not paranoid. I’m experienced,” he intones. Also solid are Jamey Sheridan and Billy Crudup as conflicted lawyers and go-betweens.

The film nails, absolutely nails, the rhythms and culture inside a metro newspaper -- the petty rivalries, the built-in curiosity about everything, the caustic humor, the deep-seated belief that whatever you’re working on is the most important story in the world. All the little background details are there, from the men’s cheap short-sleeved shirts and ties to the hurried junk food, constant scribbling of notes and long nights away from family. (And how the librarians are the unsung heroes of every newsroom.)

It shows how journalists get reluctant people to talk, through appeals to better nature and sheer persistence, since they have no real power other than the threat of telling the truth. “You want to be on the right side of this,” they say, more than once.

The story of mass abuse of children by priests is one of immense importance, but even it is fleeting in comparison to the story of journalism itself. It’s been called the first draft of history, but what reporting most essentially represents is the intrinsic need to ask questions -- to inquire of our communities, our wielders of power, of ourselves.

“Spotlight” is the triumphant depiction of one of mankind’s noblest instincts.

Review: "Southpaw"

You go to see a movie like "Southpaw" for the gritty performances and slam-bang boxing scenes. From a story standpoint it's a pretty generic boxing plot, with our scrappy champion rising and falling, falling and rising, from the mat and metaphorically.

The screenplay by Kurt Sutter is original only on a technicality, liberally cribbing its plot from the "Rocky" movies and other boxing flicks. (He reputedly wrote the script with Eminem in mind, basing it loosely on the rapper/sometime actor's life story. Em doesn't appear, though he supplies a couple of punchy songs.)

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the protagonist with the not-at-all-subtle name of Billy Hope, who rose from the hard streets of New York City through dint of hard work and an unmatched ferocity in the ring, an unwanted orphan who became light heavyweight champion.

Then through a succession of senseless disaster and self-destructive behavior, Billy loses it all, including custody of his 10-year-old daughter, Leila (Oona Laurence). He's forced to reinvent himself as a fighter and as a man, starting from the bottom again and earning his way back to glory and redemption.

This is Boxing Movies 101 stuff. Check that; it's actually 201. Boxing 101 is "Rocky" and "Rocky II," where an unknown pug rises to the championship. "Southpaw" is "Rocky III" and "IV" -- they're virtually interchangeable, really -- where the reigning champ takes things for granted, gets knocked down a peg or seven, and has to scrap back to former heights.

There literally isn't a single surprise along the way, including the inevitable final match. You've got the familiar nemeses along the way, including a black-hearted young boxer (Miguel Gomez) who was responsible for Billy's fall, and the mercenary boxing promoter/manager (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), who tells Billy they're family but saves his deepest love for the hottest prospect.

It's an interesting role for Gyllenhaal, who jumped off the traditional Hollywood star train a few years back to pursue smaller, more personal projects like "Nightcrawler" and the excellent "End of Watch." He's fought against his blue-eyed prettiness during this time, and in "Southpaw" he really works the scarred, stumblebum angle, muttering his lines and cocking his one good eye.

After losing a bunch of weight for "Nightcrawler" he packs on the ripped muscles for this role, and director Antoine Fuqua obligingly sweeps his camera and lights across Gyllenhaal's torso to emphasize the craggy wall of his abdomen. (I'm not really sure when abs became a thing; you'd think a boxer would want a little padding there to better absorb blows.) The actor's body becomes this strange mix of revulsion and fetishized object; we linger over his spent blood and abused flesh like a latter-day Lazarus.

The fight scenes are well-choreographed and energetic, though in the commonplace failing of Hollywood boxing movies, the fighters absorb more solid blows in a single round than most pugilists encounter in a year. Billy's strategy, if you can call it that, is to let opponents wallop him until he gets furious enough to uncork his pent-up rage.

Forest Whitaker is terrific as Tick Wills, an old-school trainer who teaches kids at an inner-city gym. Billy comes to him at his bottom, after lost having his wife (Rachel McAdams) to tragedy, his daughter to social services and his fame and fortune to his own self-hating spiral. Tick is old and tough, has taken his own cuts, and retrains Billy as a defensive fighter. "Protect yourself" is his mantra, underlined by one cloudy eye.

Just as the two men begin to trust one another, the filmmakers shortcut the journey and we're back to the ring again for Billy's deliverance. A smarter, better movie would've had Billy turn down the offers of quick money and a shot at the title, realizing that when you've gone down the path of destruction you can't just back up to solve your problems.

But who wants to see a boxing movie about a boxer who doesn't want to box anymore? Me, but apparently few others.

Review: "About Time"

Most romantic movies follow a familiar pattern so slavishly their endings seem preordained. The happy couple walks off into the sunset, there is maybe a proposal of marriage, perhaps snapshots of the wedding over the closing credits.

The charming and ambitious “About Time” reaches that point about halfway through, and keeps going. We follow the couple as their journey continues into settled marriage, child birth and rearing, struggles with careers and the loss of older loved ones. The fact it also involves time travel is merely a quirk.

I enjoyed the first part of the film, even as it seemed as if writer/director Richard Curtis was laboring to repeat his success with “Love Actually” from a decade ago. Domhnall Gleeson, son of Brendan and best known as one of the Weasley brothers in the “Harry Potter” movies, plays a typical uptight British romantic leading man, stammering adorably through his misadventures with women.

But just when the movie reached its natural stopping point, it continued onward and found a deeper, richer tale to tell about what it means to be in love. When you’re young and it’s new, love is about the flash and flame of passion. Later on, one must stoke the fire to keep it going, and learn to appreciate the low, slow burn of everyday life.

The story opens with Tim (Gleeson) age 21 and being given the news by his father (a spot-on Bill Nighy): all the men in their family have the ability to travel through time. Simply go into a dark place, clench your fists and think about a point earlier in your life, and you’ll be there.

There are caveats: you can only revisit times and places in your own life -- so Tim can’t, say, decide to take a jaunt with King Tut in prehistoric Egypt. The future’s off-limits, too. Mostly it’s an opportunity to revisit events that didn’t go so well and try again, dad instructs. Tim uses his trial run to return to a New Year’s Eve party where he failed to kiss the slightly awkward girl at midnight, leaving her crushed, and lay on a fantastic smooch.

This sets the stage for the rest of Tim’s time travel: “For me, it was always going to be about love.”

He spends the next hour or so of screen time wooing Mary (Rachel McAdams), a winsome American and fellow Londoner. They share a lovely blind date – literally in the blind; it takes place in a pitch-black restaurant with blind waiters – and hit it off. But Tim must redo the evening to help out a family friend (Tom Hollander) in dire need, and can’t be in two places at once.

First he must track her down, but finds in the week interval she has acquired a boyfriend. He tries again by intervening at the party where they met. He even hits rewind on their first night in bed to upgrade the lovemaking from adequate to epic.

The movie is often raucously humorous – the part where Tim gets to try out various chums as his best man so he can experience how awful their wedding toasts would be is just gut-busting funny.

If this sounds too gimmicky, like a Brit version of “Groundhog Day,” then you’ll be happy to know that Curtis cuts the antics off just before it becomes tedious. Instead Tim must deal with the outlier realities of being able to alter events, including a heartbreaking one involving children.

“About Time” morphs from a frothy romcom into an insightful meditation on life, love and cherishing the immediacy of workaday existence. As time goes on (and backwards, and forwards) Tim finds himself less and less tempted to hop back to put a new spin on things. We also learn poignant things about his father, who mostly used his “extra days” to read books and spend time with his children.

I admit I went into “About Time” expecting little. Instead, I discovered a romantic movie with a mountain of smarts as well as heart. That doesn’t happen too often.

Video review: "Morning Glory"

"Morning Glory" got pasted at the box office and stomped by critics, but I truly enjoyed it. It's sort of the inverse of "Network" and "Broadcast News," where the main character doesn't fret about how television journalism is being watered down by infotainment, but wants to turn the dial on Lite News up to 11.

Still, it has top-notch actors in roles they inhabit with clear enthusiasm, exchanging whip-smart banter at a breakneck pace, alternating sweet and sad moments with unhurried efficiency.

Rachel McAdams plays Becky Fuller, a young, irrepressible producer given the thankless -- and most think impossible -- task of turning around "Daybreak," the last-place network morning show. The studio is literally falling apart, the field reporters are all castoffs, and the creepy co-host welcomes Becky by asking to take photographs of her feet.

After the fetishist is given a quick heave, Becky manages to land legendary anchorman Mike Pomeroy as his replacement. Played with grizzled charm by Harrison Ford, Mike is so disenchanted by his fall from grace that he takes it out on Becky, his brittle co-host (an underused Diane Keaton) and everyone else in his path.

Mike wants the show to pursue hard news, while Becky is committed to making things friendlier and zanier. As they eventually draw closer, Mike also provides a cautionary tale on what letting work dominate your life does to personal relationships.

Like the show it chronicles, "Morning Glory" ain't Pulitzer material, but it is entertaining.

Video extras are a bit skimpy. There is a feature-length commentary track by director Roger Michell and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna. But the rest of the goodies are restricted to a single deleted scene.
Features are the same for Blu-ray and DVD formats.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2 stars

Review: "Morning Glory"

"Morning Glory" is basically "Broadcast News" flipped on its head. Instead of valuing hard-edged journalism over TV showmanship, "Morning Glory" champions the fluff.

The set-up is that Rachel McAdams plays Becky Fuller, a hard-charging young executive producer brought in to turn around the moribund "Daybreak" morning show. She hires a downfallen Dan Rather-type anchorman, crustily played by Harrison Ford, to shake things up. They spend the rest of the movie battling over lightweight vs. substantive journalism.

As someone who started out covering politics and couldn't wait to jump to the features side of the newsroom, maybe I'm just a soft touch. But I found this movie delightful and often raucously funny, with sharp performances by McAdams and Ford.

McAdams draws a character as distinctive as Holly Hunter's Oscar-nominated turn in "Broadcast News," playing Becky as a borderline neurotic woman whose career consumes her whole life. After she's laid off from her job on "Good Morning, New Jersey," her mother unceremoniously dumps cold water on her dream of one day producing the "Today" show.

"At 8, it was adorable. At 18, it was inspiring. At 28, it's officially embarrassing. I just want it to stop before it becomes heartbreaking," she says.

But a harried network boss (Jeff Goldblum) gives her a shot at "Daybreak," figuring he's got nothing to lose. The show is perpetually in fourth place in the ratings, is stuck with a tiny budget and a shoddy studio where all the doorknobs fall off, and the on-air talent looks like the castoffs of every cheesy show that ever got cancelled.

Becky sends a signal by firing the creepy co-anchor (Ty Burrell) and encouraging veteran Colleen Peck to let loose a little during the cooking sessions and exotic animal segments. But she really lands her white whale when she convinces -- well, strong-arms, actually -- Mike Pomeroy into joining the show.

As Mike never fails to remind everyone, he's had one of the most storied careers in TV news: eight Peabody Awards, a Pulitzer and 16 Emmys. He only agrees to be on "Daybreak" so he can collect millions over the last two years of his contract, and oozes dripping condescension during his every interaction, on-air or off.

With his slicked-back hair and melodious grumble of a voice, Ford gives Mike some depth beneath the growl. Here's a man who's given his entire life over to his job, to the detriment of his personal relationships, and he's been rewarded by getting the boot.

When he watches his successor on the evening news, swilling pricey scotch from a tumbler, Mike glares at the screen and fumes, "That's my chair!" Ford shows us the man's bile.

Director Roger Michell ("Venus") keeps a delicate but firm hand on the film's tone, which combines generous helpings of funny and sad. The original screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna ("The Devil Wears Prada") is clever and zippy, though it apportions too much screen time to some things and not enough to others.

For example, I was disappointed that Diane Keaton has a much skimpier role than previews suggested. We only see Colleen's on-set diva act, and nothing more. There's one scene where she and Mike engage in some acid banter on the show, and we expect it to go somewhere, but it's quickly dropped.

Becky's romance with another producer (Patrick Wilson) similarly feels short-shrifted, trotted out just long enough to remind us what she's missing out on with her crazy work life.

Still, the strong far outweighs the weak in this spirited flick that, like its warring journalists, realizes that sweet and sour mix together quite nicely. See? You're reading a movie Web site right now, so obviously you enjoy a little fluff.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Sherlock Holmes"

"Sherlock Holmes" at least has the good manners to be honest about its intentions: It's an amped-up, action-packed take on the iconic British detective, with calm deductive reasoning and deerstalker hats jettisoned for lots of science nerd tech-talk, slo-mo explosions and knife fights.
It's "CSI: Victorian Age."

Guy Ritchie brings his distinctive feverish directing style to the Industrial Age crime procedural. Robert Downey Jr., as Holmes, likes to go about bare-chested and relishes getting into brawls, so he can map out his bone-crunching moves beforehand -- thus, we get to see his fights twice, first in slow time and then sped up.

This version of Holmes also possesses observational powers that border on superhuman; after a brief glance at a person, he can tell you everything about them from their occupation to their progeny. He can discern exact chemical compositions from odor or taste.

I don't necessarily object to this modernized version of Sherlock Holmes -- the conception of the sleuth as a charming gentleman, best exemplified by actor Basil Rathbone in a swath of midcentury films, had grown rather quaint. And Holmes' knowledge of martial arts and boxing are part of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories.

But Ritchie, Downey and a slew of writers seem so intent on branding their Holmes a bold departure, they forget to assemble a believable character.

Downey plays the detective as an obsessive scoundrel, who when he's not solving crimes goes into extended periods of torpor and pharmacological experimentation. The actor uses a clipped delivery designed to mask a middling British accent.

Jude Law plays Dr. Watson, Holmes' right-hand man and best friend. As the story opens, Watson is leaving their shared house and partnership to settle down with an eligible lady (Kelly Reilly), so there's a bit of tension between them.

Holmes' own romantic entanglement arrives in the form of Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), the only criminal ever to give Holmes the slip -- twice. She and Holmes play a cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship, with Irene's exact loyalties in doubt.

The plot is an utterly forgettable mishmash of black magic and science, with the mysterious Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) as the bogeyman. The story opens with Holmes and Watson catching Blackwood in the act of a dark sacrificial ritual, but he somehow survives his hanging execution to wreak havoc on London.

His plan is to enlist the aid of the Temple of the Four Orders, a variation on the old Masonic legends, in taking over the world.

The action scenes are quite a lot of fun, if a bit hard to follow at times. I especially liked Holmes' facing off with a giant French thug who actually gets to spout better one-liners than the hero.
This new "Sherlock Holmes" strives desperately to be new and fresh, and the strain of the effort shows.

2.5 stars

DVD review: "State of Play"

An above-average political thriller, "State of Play" also offers one of the most authentic portrayals of newspaper journalists since "All the President's Men."

With his frumpy clothes fitting poorly over a pudgy body, paper-strewn cubicle, studied nonchalance and scruffy beard decorated with Cheetos crumbs, Russell Crowe appears every inch the grizzled, veteran reporter. His Cal McAffrey is an old-school digger for the fictional Washington Globe.

His best friend also happens to be Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), a young, Kennedy-esque Congressman who gets caught up in a sex-and-murder imbroglio that Cal has been assigned to investigate.

Tagging along is an idealistic young blogger (Rachel McAdams) who Cal initially treats dismissively. In time, he sees that the kid's got chops, and they become partners in the biggest story in Washington, D.C.

Helen Mirren also has a nice turn as the ball-busting editor trying to get a juicy story where her star reporter has a personal connection that could lead to a big scoop, but also backfire if he tries to protect his friend rather than the facts. She also has to deal with impersonal new corporate owners who value profit over news.

Director Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") and his trio of screenwriters stir the pot expertly at first, allowing the players and pieces of the puzzle to assemble themselves. The second half turns too much to conventional thriller tropes, including the unlikely scenario of both Cal and his young partner having shots taken at them in separate incidents.

DVD extras are rather miserly: Two deleted scenes and a making-of featurette that consists of more hype than insight. The only interesting thing I found in the latter was cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto's decision to shoot Crowe's scenes on film with an anthropomorphic lens to give them a gritty, shallow look while using digital video with a deep focus for Affleck's scenes to make Washington's corridors of power seem sleek and expansive.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 2 stars