State Of Play (12A)

PAUL Abbott’s much-admired 2003 BBC mini-series becomes a Hollywood movie complete with star cast, political corruption plot and Washington locations. But the script doesn’t stray far from the usual cliches about journalists. So the hero, Washington Globe newshound Cal McAffrey is a maverick with an untidy desk, good contacts and even messier private life.

Having him played by Russell Crowe – looking like someone who sleeps rough and gargles with whisky as a substitute for cleaning his teeth – adds a certain frisson on account of the actor’s well-known dislike of the media following several headline-making encounters.

McAffrey is at loggerheads with Globe blogger Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), who’s young and inexperienced, but whose website connections endear her to management.

This at-odds couple are thrown together to investigate the story of the apparent suicide of Sonia Baker, a research assistant on the staff of US Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck). When he breaks down at a televised hearing, that rather gives away the game that they were having an affair.

Collins just happens to have been a room-sharing college buddy of McAffrey, who also appears to have slept with Collins’ wife (Robin Wright Penn) at some point in their friendship.

What, you may ask, is the editor doing while McAffrey and Frye are digging the dirt?

Not a lot is the answer. She’s played by Helen Mirren as a hard-nosed woman who seems to have little else to do but stand around moaning about the new cost-cutting bosses. Director Kevin McDonald, who made Touching The Void and The Last King Of Scotland, ensures there are a couple of tense, dimly-lit scenes of suspense – in a hospital ward and an underground car park – but trying to cram a sixhour TV series into a twohour film finally defeats him in a rushed finale that defies logic.