8 things about 'State of Play'

1. It's long (two hour and eight minutes) but that's a benefit, not a hazard, as Deckard might say: like a good book, you wish it would just go on and on.

2. Rachel McAdams, who's about to turn 31, looks around 12 years old in the film. Charmingly daft, actually, the way the director decided to really create a contrast with her as cub reporter to big gnarly bear Russell Crowe.

3. Russell Crowe, like Brad Pitt, always makes a movie better just by his presence.

4. Washington, D.C., the venue for the fictionalized Blackwater/government cabal, doesn't look very good at all compared to other thrillers of this sort (think "No Way Out" and "Absolute Power").

5. Helen Mirren's editor-in-chief of a Washington Post-like paper is just wonderful, bitingly sarcastic, indignant and profane.

6. Ben Affleck seems like he's sleepwalking through his part as a bent congressman: I wonder if he was preoccupied by something. Like McAdams, he also looks as if he stepped into the Ponce de León jetstream, appearing about 25 (he's 37).

7. Jeff Daniels, as the House Majority Whip, is meant to be frightening and foreboding but alas, only appears to be Jeff Daniels trying to be frightening and foreboding. Stick to Donald Sutherland for roles of this sort.

8. Robin Wright Penn is, as always, understated and superb. As with Crowe, everything she's in is better just for that fact.