Product: State Of Play (2008)
Rating: 5.0
First rate political thriller
"State of Play" is a wonderful political thriller that crosses a group of newspaper reporters, members of Parliament and the police. It is directed in six one-hour parts by David Yates who directed the most recent Harry Potter films."State of Play" has a superb cast including many familiar faces: Bill Nighy, James McAvoy and Kelly Macdonald (Carla Jean from "No Country for Old Men" with a very different accent), and Polly Walker (Atia from ROME) among others.There's to be an all-star Americanized movie version of "State of Play" in 2009 staring Russell Crow, Ben Affleck, Helen Miren and Jeff Daniels directed by Kevin Macdonald ("Last King of Scotland"). That may end up being good, but condensing this story down to a two-hour movie will be challenging and will certainly require leaving a lot of the characters behind. Plus it will require extricating the story from its compelling backdrop that is the inner-workings of the British press and government, and that's one of the more fascinating aspects of the mini-series.