A familiar story, but well-told

Rating: 8/10 (5 April 2016)

If you've seen one movie about journalists, you've seen them all. They're like intellectual versions of the "Rocky" movies, with reporters as plucky underdogs who beat the odds. With "Spotlight", the story of how the Boston Globe uncovered 30 years of child sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese, the elements are all there: the intrepid reporters facing impossible odds, the shadowy good ol' boy networks blocking the investigation, the world-weary editor putting everything on the line, and justice being done in the end.
While the film doesn't break any new ground, however, it does do a very good job of telling the story of one of the last feats of real investigative journalism in America. There are no surprises here, even if you don't know anything about the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. But for all its predictability, "Spotlight" has moments of real brilliance, and knows the world it inhabits inside and out.
In 2001, Boston Globe reporters Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) and Sasha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) start investigating John Geoghan, a priest who molested hundreds of boys. They uncover evidence that the Catholic Church has been covering up decades of priest sex abuse and shuffling the offenders from parish to parish, allowing them to molest with impunity. Of course, the Church throws its full weight behind killing the story, but senior editors Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) and Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) take on the corruption with help from Mitch Garebedian (Stanley Tucci), a lawyer representing the priests' victims.
I worked as a reporter for several years, and every detail of the investigative process portrayed in this movie rang true for me, often painfully so. It captures the thrill of chasing an important story and the frustration of hitting a dead end. It knows that a reporter's job is a thankless one, but that the small moments of triumph - a detail that puts everything together, your name on a front page story, an approving nod from your editor - make it all worthwhile. It's rare, and refreshing, to see a movie about people who love their jobs.
The top-billed stars, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo, are okay, not great; they're at best blandly competent, occasionally slipping into ham territory with wide-eyed monologues of righteous indignation. This is a supporting actor's movie. As a lawyer for the Archdiocese who tries to block the story, Jamey Sheridan is compelling as the kind of reluctant accomplice who allows these sorts of crimes to go unpunished in the name of "just doing his job"; he seems aged before his time by years of unacknowledged guilt. Keaton and Schrieber are nicely understated as men who have given their lives to a profession that is changing faster than they can adapt, old school guys who hate having to care about the online edition. Tucci is fantastic as a true advocate, a man who has spent years fighting for what's right and has the scars to prove it.
"Spotlight" is at heart an old-fashioned story about good triumphing over evil through dogged work and unbending belief. It's a story all the more satisfying for the fact that it is true. It's a little by-the-numbers, but that's okay; it's nice to know that there is a formula for good people doing the right thing.