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 shocker. At the urging of a new executive editor who saw something they had not, the reporters uncovered 70 pedophile priests the Catholic Church had protected over decades — in the heart of a city where the church was sacrosanct and a vital part of many lives. The series earned the Globe a Pulitzer for public service reporting in 2003 and triggered numerous investigations.
“Spotlight” is likely to stir your outrage, but McCarthy and co-screenwriter Josh Singer (TV’s “West Wing”) go beyond mere provocation. They put us into the worn-out shoes of a motley team of reporters, nailing all the details of what a newsroom looks and feels like just as the newspaper industry was preparing to take a big hit from the internet.
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