Movie #1118 .........................."Spotlight"

Movie #1118 "Spotlight" is a film that will be in contention for awards season, and it is worthy of the accolades, which is a little surprising since we've seen the film before in something like "All the Presidents Men" and others.  The topic isn't new to us, either, and many of us even followed the story back in 2001 when the Boston Cardinal was brought under charges for having knowledge of abusive priests in his jurisdiction and covered it up by moving them on to other parishes.  What's impressive with the film is that with all the above going against it, the film is able to keep our interest to the end ---- it helps to have a topnotch cast, who all work on their own as characters and really as  actors, too --- what I mean is that they all have their own baggage they carry around (individual stories) and they hardly work together in the field, but like baseball players who have a base to cover and a job to do, they investigate with varying methods.  Mark Ruffalo seems the most passionate, and he is pushy, hot on the trail of whoever the next interviewee is --- he's yelling, throwing things, very demonstrative in comparison to the quieter Rachel McAdams who works with her eyes and her pencil.  It's nice to see Brian D'Arcy (just saw him in "Something's Rotten" on Broadway, and he played "Shrek" for years) finish out the Spotlight crew, with his quiet, mannered and intelligent approach to his investigating. And at the helm is Michael Keaton, who has really become an excellent actor and shows this in every scene he has trying to use his friends he grew up with to get more information.  And when they finally all come together to share info, it's quite exciting --- there are minor epiphanies along the way when they get new information or new clues and these are what feed into our interest to keep watching.  I couldn't help thinking throughout the film that this was really old information that we should have picked up back in the early 2000's, but 9/11 and gun shootings have been keeping us more busy and stories like these haven't been in the spotlight ---- but that they should be and we should be doing something about it.  Thank goodness for the journalists who work daily to get the story RIGHT, instead of just trying to get the scoop before anyone else.

Spotlight

2015 R Rated R

rated 3.3 stars

3.3

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Revealing a string of cover-ups stretching back decades, a team of "Boston Globe" reporters exposes the Catholic Archdiocese's history of keeping reports about child molestation and other priest-initiated abuse under wraps.

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams