State Of Playyyawn

So I FINALLY watched State Of Play (The BBC Series version) this weekend. It was good, but I think I had my hopes set too high.

People often say this show is “The British Wire“. I’m sorry to report that, as good as it is, it is most definitely NOT anywhere close to being The Wire. No Tom Waits opening song, no kaleidoscopic viewing of the events of the story through all layers of characterisation. No fully-realised secondary and tertiary characters. No Baltimore. No Omar. No Bubbles.

Just a two-and-a-half hour story squeezed into six hours of BBC-style story-telling. I maintain that the big twist ending, halfway through hour six, is a twist ONLY because the story’s been going on so long that you’ve gotten comfortably numb and have almost forgotten the main catalyst.

I am interested in seeing the US movie they’ve turned this story into. After the six hour miniseries that was too long I’m betting that the US movie will either tighten the story into a great film or chop it unrecognisably. Either way, I do think that Mack will take a liking to it, given the subject matter. (Oil industry shenanigans.)

I will say, though, that the miniseries is worth watching if for no other reason than Bill Nighy. He has said for several years that being a journalist was his dream job. That shows through in his performance as he lights up the screen everytime he’s on. The scene where he greenlights the hiring of the freelancer played by James McAvoy is priceless–I rewound it three or four times.

Another sighting that left me kind of shocked was actor Rory McCann who plays D.I. Brown. The man is the spitting image of a young Sean Connery. In fact I even stopped the movie to google him, thinking he may have been Connery’s son. He isn’t. But he did star in the funniest oatmeal commercial I’ve ever seen.
(Who spells “porridge” like that, though?)

Anyway, if you’ve got Netflix you should add State of Play, because it’s good. It’s just no substitute for The Wire.