UNITED STATES
Columbia Daily Tribune
By ASHER GELZER-GOVATOS
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Movies about journalists face an uphill battle in engaging their audience. While the end result of a journalistic investigation might be fascinating, the process of getting there requires frequent repetition of activities that don’t exactly crackle with excitement: fact-gathering, source-checking, data collation.
“Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe investigative team that blew the lid off of the pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church, puts these mundane activities front and center but still manages to sizzle with energy.
Propelled along by Howard Shore’s rhythmic score, director Tom McCarthy (“The Visitor,” “Win Win”) methodically ratchets up the tension as the journalists — played by Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James — slowly peel back the layers of a cover-up that runs deep into the heart of a Boston institution.
The movie never sensationalizes their labor, instead highlighting many scenes of leg work and file digging that congeal into a love letter to the old-fashioned work of hard journalism.
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