La sombra del poder

Russel Crowe no me decepcionó como siempre, defendí a Bena Affleck de todos los difamadores y Rachel McAdams tiene un encanto increíble, irradia ternura y sensibilidad. Este trío de actores en una historia emocionante llena de sorpresas logró impresionarme a pesar de haberlo visto poco después de Coraline y Millennium. Especialmente después de este último, Na odstřel tuvo una posición difícil. (06.07.2009)

Lástima que los guionistas se centraron tanto en la trama periodística, que no es tan importante para el espectador. El personaje de la editora en jefe, interpretada por Helen Mirren, y su esfuerzo por publicar el mejor artículo solo ralentiza la película. El espectador no está interesado en los periódicos, sino en revelar secretos, desarrollar relaciones entre personajes magníficamente interpretados y las amenazas a sus vidas en un peligroso juego político de alto riesgo. ¿No sería suficiente el excelente Russell Crowe para la trama periodística? Por lo demás, sin embargo, muy decente, Ben Affleck está bien y las emociones entre Crowe y Robin Wright Penn son completamente creíbles. (07.06.2009)

If you can already guess what’s going to happen from the trailer, something is wrong. State of Play is undoubtedly an excellent thriller. This is especially true for those of us who like conspiracy theories and enjoy unraveling them together with the film's characters. Unfortunately, the same doesn’t apply to those viewers who have already watched many films like this. Kevin MacDonald tells the story cleverly and very ingeniously lays out the clues, and it's great fun to watch the hard-working actors looking for individual crumbs out of the mysterious forest. Yet, somehow, the entire plot is put together without any stronger vigor or a stronger authorial decal. As a TV craftsman for HBO, he would score points with this film, but in an A-movie thriller, he loses out because of the clichés. I’ll give the film a net 70%, but I just can't round it up to four stars. (19.08.2009)

Very nice directing and good actors, but the script hardly traverses the three levels of the story: thriller, political-journalistic moralizing and personal drama. The introduction is excellent, full of the unique and very rhythmic direction by Macdonald, but then everything somehow shatters, shreds, evaporates... the legible transnational conspiracy tries to compare with the more serious mental matrix, but it is tedious and quite protracted. The final twists may come as a surprise, but they do not fix the shoddy impression from the previous storytelling. In the end, State of Play is neither an original thriller nor a film that would appeal to us with any message. It has a little bit of both and not enough of either. Nevertheless, mainly thanks to the directing and the actors, it holds up more than honorably. [70%] (18.05.2009)

A solid political thriller with great actors, good direction, but a problematic script that results in several characters and scenes feeling empty, and a resolution that is too concise, to the point that after one viewing I’m not entirely sure that everything fits properly. That wouldn’t be a problem in a sci-fi mystery movie, but in a political thriller, which should rely primarily on the plot turning flawlessly and the effect of the final twist, this is a pretty serious shortcoming. 6+/10 (28.05.2009)