State of Play (Official sales site) (Warner/BBC Video)
Fans of The Wire especially should check out this crisp, complex, multi-layered British television conspiracy-thriller serial. First broadcast in six episodes on BBC One, State of Play stars David Morrissey, John Simm, Kelly Macdonald (No Country for Old Men), Polly Walker, Bill Nighy, and James McAvoy (Atonement). It tells the story of a newspaper's investigation into the death of a young woman, and centers on the relationship between the leading journalist and his old friend, the woman's employer. This outstanding serial begins with the assassination of a teen, apparently a drug-related killing, and the at-first coincidental death of Sonia Baker, the young researcher for a Member of Parliament (Morrissey). As the deaths are investigated by newspaper reporter Cal McCaffrey (Simm, Life on Mars) and his colleagues, it appears that the deaths weren't merely connected -- a shadowy multinational conspiracy links them with oil industry-backed corruption of high-ranking British government ministers.

For his role as the dry, sarcastic newspaper editor, Cameron Foster, Bill Nighy won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. The series also won BAFTAs for sound and editing. It was nominated in the Best Drama Serial category and the Best Actor category again (Morrissey), and other categories. It also won major awards from the Royal Television Society, Banff Television Festival, Broadcasting Press Guild, Directors Guild of Great Britain, the mystery-writers' Edgar Awards, and others.

The two-disc DVD from Warner/BBC Video delivers a good-looking anamorphic widescreen image and DD stereo sound. For extras we get two commentary tracks: the Episode 1 track is by creator/writer Paul Abbott and director David Yates; and the Episode 6 commentary is by Yates, producer Hilary Bevan Jones, and editor Mary Day. See it before the big-screen movie remake, now in production from director Kevin Macdonald with Russell Crowe, Jason Bateman, Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, and Robin Wright Penn.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us