STATE OF PLAY 2009

the year's first big prestige picture


organic and artfully prepared.





The movie's script is credited to three heavyweights, all veterans of political suspense film: Matthew Michael Carnahan, who wrote The Kingdom and Lions for Lambs Tony Gilroy, of Michael Clayton and Bourne movie fame; and Billy Ray, who did the magazine-corruption film Shattered Glass and the CIA exposé Breach. When a trio of top names is on a script, you can guess that each worked consecutively on the material, trying to slim it down or punch it up; and that each was employed to fix the "improvements" the previous man had made. It's been reported that Brad Pitt had been signed to play Cal, but departed the project after difficulties with the script.

By Richard Corliss