While I enjoyed the movie, I could not help but wish that Aaron Sorkin has written the screenplay instead. The entire dialogue just lacked a Newsroom kind of sharp wit and potency. Director Tom McCarthy wrote the screenplay as well, but for somebody who's known for Meet The Parents, the dialogue exchange among the investigative journalists with The Globe was just a bit flat. Nevertheless, McCarthy did a great job with the direction of the film as it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time even though I already knew the ending.
It's been a long time that any movie has been made on investigative journalism, and from this perspective, Spotlight was indeed a pleasure to watch. But what made this movie excellent was the entire cast, particularly Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci and Liev Schreiber. The first three certainly deserve an Oscar nomination as they played their respective characters with such authenticity and intensity. Ruffalo has always been a superb actor but, with age, he seems to be getting better and better. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor last year for his role in Foxcatcher, and actually won a SAG Award and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the HBO movie, The Normal Heart, which he also produced. But I loved him as the 'loser' record label executive in 2013's Begin Again and as a bipolar father in Infinitely Polar Bear in 2014 even without any award nominations.
But kudos should also go to Liev Schrieber (lead actor in TV drama Ray Donovan and, in real life, Naomi Watts's husband) who played Martin Baron, the new Executive Editor of The Boston Globe. He was the big boss who asked Spotlight's editor Walter 'Robby' Robinson (played by Michael Keaton) to dig deep on the Catholic Church in this investigative news story assignment which eventually won the paper a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. When everybody else in the newsroom was shouting, yelling and getting real intense and emotional about the investigation and the story, Schrieber's Baron was extremely thoughtful, strategic and calm throughout the entire film. He was a staunch anchor for his team and because he was empowered by the publisher to shake things up, he literally made things happen, even if it meant taking down the powerful Catholic Archdiocese. In real life, Baron has been working as the Executive Editor of The Washington Post since December 2012 after a successful career with The Globe.
In spite of an ugly picture painted of the Catholic Church, I understand that the film has received a positive reception from many of its leaders. Cardinal Sean O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston said Spotlight illustrated how the newspaper's reports prompted the church "to deal with what was shameful and hidden." Vatican Radio, the official radio service of the Vatican, also gave strong praise for the film, describing it as "honest" and "compelling." The child molestation scandals were numerous from around the world and the Pope is still dealing with the aftermath.
This is not a film to watch when you're tired because you would need to pay attention to a lot of details. But it's a fantastic moral journalistic thriller that would eventually make you applaud (as did the audience at my show) at the end of the movie because justice is done.
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