A tribute to all the hard working and dedicated journalists !!!

Rating: 9/10 (6 April 2016)

'Spotlight' co-written by Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer and directed by McCarthy is based on a real life story where The Boston Globe's Spotlight team of investigative journalists made investigations into cases of widespread and systemic child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Catholic priests.
The acting and style of direction of the film go hand in hand and complement each other. McCarthy gets the most understated, nuanced and restrained performances from each and every one of the members of his amazing cast. Every actor cranks the subtlety up to 11 which along with McCarthy and Singer's naturalistic dialogue makes the characters as realistic as possible. All the actors work together and put the story above their own personal moments to shine on screen. The teamwork of the characters in the film gets beautifully portrayed by the actors. Ruffalo, Keaton, McAdams, Schreiber, Slattery, Tucci, etc. all are at the top of their game.
The style of direction, just like the acting is very unflashy. Just like the other McCarthy films that I have watched like 'The Station Agent' and 'Win Win', he gives the story and the characters all the importance without feeling the need to be too stylistic with camera movement. He uses minimalism to maximum effect and respects the subject matter and its importance and expects the viewer to do the same without feeling the need to see exciting edge of the seat moments. Having said that there are subtle directorial decisions like slow zoom-outs or slightly extended shots that are sparingly used by him. The procedural nature of the film is very reminiscent of 'All the President's Men' and 'Zodiac', although it is no way near as dark in its style of storytelling as Zodiac even though the subject matter is equally disturbing.
The city of Boston also plays a big role in the film. Even though it is a big city, the fact that it still has a very cosy and local feel to it is underlined by McCarthy. The huge role that the church and the catholic church played/plays in the lives of the Boston dwellers also gets depicted. The timeline of 2001 also gets utilised well. We see the occurrence of 9/11 and the attention of the Boston Globe gets quickly shifted to that story and the persistence and dedication of the Spotlight team on the sex abuse story gets tested temporarily which felt very believable.
'Spotlight' is at the basic level a tribute to the hard working and dedicated journalists who love their work and care about the subjects and the people that they write for. This film is an account of a time when internet was starting to expand its horizons and the print media's significance was starting to decline, but that decline had not completely taken place yet. This is a film about a group of investigative journalists who toiled hard without any assistance from the internet. They manually researched, read books and put in the hours to do what they thought needed to be done. 'Spotlight' is a nod of the hat to all of the those hard working journalists of yesteryears. They are heroic not because of the lines that they say in the film, they are heroic because of their work.