UNITED STATES
Mercury News

By Randy Myers
San Jose Mercury News Correspondent
POSTED: 11/09/2015

Gracefully understated yet undeniably powerful, “Spotlight” not only captures what it feels like to be a pack of journalists hot on the trail of a clergy abuse scandal, but richly re-creates the Boston setting and the shocking culture of silence within the Catholic Church hierarchy and beyond. It rivals “All the President’s Men” in a portrayal of journalism so crisply executed by director and co-screenwriter Tom McCarthy,you’re likely to hear even more about it at Oscar time.

Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams headline a top-notch ensemble cast in a taut drama that exactingly conveys a place and time when old-school investigative reporting held sway — the sort that exposes malfeasance in high places and makes heads roll.

In 2002, reporters on the Boston Globe’s Spotlight regional investigative team dug up a…