One news team uncovers the biggest cover up in Boston’s history, in “Spotlight”. Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James and Stanley Tucci, the film tells the riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delves into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world. “Spotlight” is the latest film for writer/director Tom McCarthy, and it is leaps and bounds above his earlier effort this year “The Cobbler”. In fact, it’s hard to even comprehend how these two films were made by the same man, because “Spotlight” is one of the year’s best films. It is truly one of the most insightful films about the evils that we don’t always see, and that centers around creative wide angle camera shots, as well as a well detailed account of the event by event nature of such a disgusting charade.

What is really fun to watch about this film is the inside look at a real news team and how they uncover each new lead. There are times when this movie feels like a cops tale because of the everchanging picture of new developments within the film’s storytelling. Each one of the actors in the film gets it right. From speech patterns to documentation of interviews and so much more, “Spotlight” feels like a movie that has done it’s homework on the big league news branches that seem to never sleep. This team encounters so many road blocks along the way, when they are facing off against an institution that is known as good in all of history’s wisest tales. The toughest thing that they find out along the way is that it’s hard to change a label once a reputation for excellence has been established. Whether or not you know about the real life events of this shocking discovery in 2002, the film has both sides of the coin conveniently covered. For the people like me who know very little about it, the movie does a great job of presenting all of the facts and kind of letting the viewer themselves decide where they stand once the movie is over. It’s lack of manipulation is one of the truest forms of sincerity from McCarthy’s script, and i always like that form of option in a film. For the people who are well informed of this dark moment in Boston’s history, the movie offers a lot of shock in it’s twists and turns with our characters and how they relate to the story. The characters themselves made for some truly interesting thoughts in my viewing.

Everyone in the film does a solid job, but there’s never really that performance that gives this movie something to remember it by, with the exception of the shocking plot. It’s not a big deal to most viewers, but I always feel like a movie can be lost in Oscar consideration when it doesn’t have a major performance for it’s audience to soak in. As i said before, everyone does well enough here, but the movie is void of any long-winded scenes of emotional response. I almost got that moment during the beginning of the third act when an argument between Keaton and Ruffalo almost seperate the team into different sides. Nobody ever steps on anyone else’s toes for the lead of this film, and that’s something that I definitely had to appreciate, even if I didn’t always agree with it. What however does work about these portrayals is how great these actors were in making me suspend disbelief that they weren’t just actors playing a role. Keaton has a subtle undertone of a fine Boston accent, but it never feels forced or like an immitation. Rachel McAdams has a lot of quirky and zaniness to her reporting style. This was certainly a 360 spin from her role this season on HBO’s “True Detective”. Ruffalo is the biggest transformation of all, as he had many shakes and twitches in his speech patterns. I’m not exactly sure if this is a part of Ruffalo’s real life traits, but i have certainly never noticed it in seeing him in over twenty films.

One thing i definitely want to talk about is the superior camera work in the film, with a subtle hint of embedded symbolism. The wide angle shots of the Boston landscape are often complimented with churches being slowly revealed in the background of most of the city’s big businesses. This is easily interpreted as the Catholic church having it’s hand on every bit of the city’s people. It’s quite shocking and albeit disturbing to see how many churches are near playgrounds throughout the film. On top of this, McCarthy offers some of the very best framing that i have seen this year, during many scenes involving multiple parties in one scene of continuous dialogue. The film shows that it has an experimental side, when it could’ve just settled for the bare minimum for a movie where people are overwhelmingly here for the story.

Overall, “Spotlight” is one of those stories about a period in history where America was given an eye-opening realism about the people we trust our children with. The film takes the tiring, but persistent, and mundane work of old school newspaper reporting, and makes it the stuff of high drama, exciting and even heroic. It’s a film that every kind of person should see, regardless of religious social standing.

9/10