Superb journalism film puts 'Spotlight' on abuse
Since 1976, Alan J. Pakula's "All the President's Men" has ruled as the gold standard of journalism motion pictures.
Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight" now owns that title.
Both dramas operate like classic mysteries with reporters chasing down leads, verifying facts, delving into research and pushing, pushing, to hit that elusive target called truth.
Like Pakula's movie - based on the book by two Washington Post reporters investigating corruption in the White House - McCarthy's drama becomes an explosive investigative reporter procedural with a long, sizzling fuse.
"Spotlight" details The Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into what begins as a local pedophilia scandal within the Catholic Church.
Then it mushrooms into a conspiratorial, systemic cover-up that, like the Watergate affair, reaches into the highest echelons of a venerable institution supposedly beyond reproach.
The plot ignites with the arrival of The Boston Globe's new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), an outsider determined to fire up the newspaper's local coverage.
He doesn't know much about the newspaper's four-person investigative team called Spotlight. He does after allegations that a local priest, Father John Geoghan, has molested more than 80 boys for 27 years, apparently unchecked by church officials.
Baron calls in Spotlight editor Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton). Unlike Baron, he grew up in the highly Catholic Boston. He realizes the political, social and economic dangers of investigating the Church.
So, the Spotlight team goes to work on the Geoghan case. Reporter Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) interviews the victims and contacts a local attorney (Billy Crudup), unsuccessful at investigating reports of sexual misconduct.
Bulldog reporter Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) chases down snippy attorney Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci, supremely eccentric), repping 86 victims in a lawsuit. Rezendes also discovers sealed documents the Church has hidden for decades.
Reporter Matt Carroll (Brian D'Arcy James) realizes he can identify pedophile priests by checking records from treatment facilities where the Church would send them before reassigning them to churches with fresh victims.
"Spotlight" makes a more dramatic, more compelling movie than "President's Men." Its two reporters had no families, no personal conflicts, not much skin in the game.
The "Spotlight" reporters put their lives and livelihoods on the line. This is where they live and work and worship.
As if that's not enough, a rival newspaper at any minute could stumble over the information the Spotlight team collected for months. Rezendes wants the story out quickly. Robinson wants to hold it until all the facts come in.
I watched "Spotlight" in awe of the raw power that McCarthy's restrained, meticulously measured direction generates from his ruthlessly tight screenplay, with Josh Singer.
They follow the "President's Men" model of presenting the narrative from the reporters' perspectives, so we share in their setbacks and revel in their achievements while searching for truth inside a labyrinth of lies, misdirection, concealment and coercion.
The scariest parts of "Spotlight" take place when city fathers and high-ranking church members insidiously suggest to Baron and Robinson that they not upset the community apple cart.
You can feel the pressure - palpable, powerful and persuasive - brought to bear on the press by those who would turn a blind eye to evil.
An angering, informational wrap-up awaits us at the end. But no histrionics, Hollywood clichés or trendy, recycled dialogue from other films.
This movie, like The Boston Globe reporters, stands apart.
“Spotlight”
★ ★ ★ ★
Starring: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery
Directed by: Tom McCarthy
Other: An Open Road release. Rated R for language. 127 minutes