“State Of Play”: Last Of Genre?
From “The Front Page” to “All the President’s Men,” some of Hollywood’s greatest movies have involved the newspaper business. So Todd McCarthy’s questions at the beginning of this review are almost elegaic: Will “State of Play,” starring Russell Crowe (pictured), be the last feature film to commemorate the physical printing and shipping of a big-city daily newspaper (as it does in almost ennobling fashion behind the end credits)? Is this also the last gasp for movies about crusading journalists, a tradition dating back to the early ’30s?
