Adapted from a popular British TV mini-series, Russell Crowe plays an investigative journalist delving deep into government corruption in "State of Play" opening April 17th. He finds himself perhaps too close to the story when an attractive aide to a United States Congressman is murdered in a most professional way. The Congressman played by Ben Affleck is suspected of having had an affair with the victim and complicating the plot further, just happens to be an old friend of Russell Crowe’s character, Cal McAffery. From that point the audience is left to wonder if the relationship is doing his job or protecting the Congressman. Early in the film the audience finds out that McAffery has had an affair with the Congressman’s wife played by Robin Wright Penn.

Helen Mirren convincingly plays the newspaper's hard-boiled editor in chief who desperately wants to take the lead on the story to bolster the paper’s image and please its new corporate owners. She intervenes to keep her overpaid star investigative reporter from being derailed by his personal involvement with the Congressman and his wife.

No story of intrigue taking place in our nation’s capital would be complete without dark characters in positions of power and “State of Play” does not disappoint. Jeff Daniels plays a congressman with close ties to a huge military contractor that is being investigated by the congressional committee lead by none other than Congressman Collins. If it’s starting to sound like Watergate meets Blackwater with sexual intrigue thrown in, you’re on the right path.

Rachael McAdams plays a reporter from the paper’s online side who, symbolically clashes with McAffery the entrenched “old media” curmudgeon. Jason Bateman is uncharacteristically oily as the bisexual club owner who is a key link in the chain of evidence about the murder.

Director Kevin McDonald (Last King of Scotland) delivers a taught, well-told story with plenty of tension as written by Mathew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom) and Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton). You can tell these folks have done this before.

In the final sequence before the credits we see the edition of the paper with the big story that plays like a ballet. It makes you realize the enormous resources and effort that are required to produce a daily newspaper. Given the bankruptcies and struggles currently facing the industry, this sequence will have an emotional impact on anyone who has worked in the newspaper business.