Imagine being a small child in a city where they completely idolize the Catholic church, and it’s known that priests are touching little children and it is all covered up. That’s the main story in the film "Spotlight," which is currently in theaters.
The film showcases a star-studded cast, such as Mark Ruffalo ("The Avengers"), Rachel McAdams ("The Notebook"), Michael Keaton ("Birdman"), Liev Schreiber ("Wolverine: Origins"), Stanley Tucci ("The Devil Wears Prada"), and John Slattery ("Mad Men"). With such an all-star cast, I went into this thinking it was going to be over the top and come down with a crash. But the thing is, it did quite the opposite.
The film follows a group of journalists who work at the Boston Globe. Within the Globe was a division called Spotlight, where more investigative stories were written. A usual Spotlight story took months to investigate then eventually write, so when the new editor came to the Globe he had a special project for them. Ruffalo, Keaton, and McAdams were assigned to uncover a potential cover up by the Catholic Church, in which priests were molesting young kids. In the past when stories of this nature would pop up, the Globe would think nothing of it and write a short piece about it. But now as the team begins to uncover more and more about this scandal, it becomes clear that no one was ever suppose to find out about this.
This film, with such a dramatic story, was not shot like how other filmmakers would with this kind of material to work with. It sort of runs like a documentary but acted out to perfection. I felt like I was watching real like, but what I was expecting was over the top action where the church stops at nothing to take these reporters down. That doesn’t happen. Instead you watch the cast learn more and more about these horrific acts perpetrated by these men of God. While this movie decided to opt out of the action portion of it, it certainly delivers on its message.
Spotlight completely captures the surprise and anguish of its characters with each new piece of evidence being released. At first I thought Mark Ruffalo’s character, Mike Rezendes, was portrayed a bit poorly; especially since I know that Ruffalo is a great actor. But that was the thing, it was more real than ever once you get to the end of the film. Ruffalo wasn’t trying to be overly dramatic, he was trying to be real, and act how a real person would act when uncovering something of this nature.
All in all I thought that this was a really remarkable movie, no real gripes about it. If I were to guess I would say that Spotlight will most definitely be nominated for an Academy Award. Guaranteed.
