Shining The Spotlight: What Investigative Reporting Is All About

Rating: 9/10 (2 December 2015)

Saw "Spotlight" starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, and Rachel McAdams at Regal Cinemas. The film is based on a true story which portrays what kind of in-depth investigative journalistic reporting it takes to uncover decades of wrong-doings by the Catholic Church, regarding covering-up priests who took advantage and molested several children across Boston, Massachusetts and beyond.
This year-long investigation by The Boston Globe starting in 2001, explores several victims of sex-crimes which were committed; but no one up to this point in the film ever was convicted of a crime. It is up to the "Spotlight" Team of investigative Reporters at The Boston Globe, led by Walter "Robby" Robinson, played by Keaton to lead his staff in cracking this case by exposing the abusive Catholic Church Priests to the public and getting justice for those victims.
The compassion for the victims these reporters had and the passion to gather enough evidence from decades past in order to write a top-notch story to present publicly was extraordinary and well-acted out throughout the film! Sacha Pfeiffer played by McAdams and "Robby" played by Keaton confront attorney Eric Macleish played by Billy Crudup who represented the many victims of priests within the Catholic Church, but ultimately they learn he settled these cases outside of court to prevent any paper-trail for a future investigation like this one and obviously public uproar.
Macleish initially refuses to discuss any details of these settlements and really never does, but while confronting him in the lobby where his law firm resides, "Robby" appears to threaten Macleish for a victim list. Both he Pfeiffer finally get a list of victims from Macleish later on in the film to add to the other compiled evidence; this after originally claiming he (Macleish) sent a list of victims over to the Globe a few years prior to this investigation and no revealing story ever came from it.
Ruffalo who plays Reporter Mike Rezendes shows how much desire he and the entire Spotlight team had to prepare and write a solid story by making several attempts to find credible evidence and sources, while pro-actively taking their time in the field to gather court documents which were sealed-off to the public prior to his efforts in getting those released to the court records room.
Searching for names through old books, making phone calls and hitting the streets interviewing victims were other strategies used by the Spotlight Team while they gathered vital information up to develop their damning story against abusive Catholic Priests. Overall, the film portrayal was interestingly on-point to real-life events as reported, in addition to the acting, and lived-up to its genre, Drama. Definitely a good movie night out! My cinema score is 9/10.
You can check out The Boston Globe's take on this film HERE: http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie