State of Play (Kevin Macdonald, 2009)

A film adaptation of the BBC series, with the action predictably shifted to America, State of Play does work as a political thriller in its own right, and Russell Crowe doing a sort of reprise of his whistle-blowing tobacco executive from The Insider is at least a safer pair of hands as the journalist investigating a pair of murders and a congressman's possible involvement than an over-acting Brad Pitt would have been, which was the original casting mooted. Unfortunately much of the substance that elevated the TV series above a standard conspiracy thriller has been lost with the translation from a six-hour format.

5/10