State of Play (2009)

"State of Play" may be the last of its genre: The newsroom thriller. As recent headlines tell us, the days of the nose-to-the-gravel newsroom reporter and morning ink on fingers are gone. Replaced by gossips who'd rather dish opinion than fact. The reporter here is Cal (Russell Crowe), a fat, long-haired slob who is covering a double murder in D.C. Meanwhile, his best pal (Ben Affleck) from college is in trouble on Capitol Hill -- he's in Congress and in a pickle after his lover/assistant dies mysteriously. Cal soon finds himself covering the story and trying to protect his friend, and not just out of loyalty. He's banging the man's wife. This ain't Bernstein or Woodward. Amid a sea of nifty plot twists and double crosses, "Play" debates the demise of hard-hitting journalism as it falls under the steamroller that is the Internet. But it gets a lot of things wrong -- from reporters playing CIA to the lack of technology such as smart phones and digital recorders. The climax settles on Cal getting the full story out in print, with no need to break it online. Fast. Is this film set in 1996? B