INDIA
The Statesman
Film: Spotlight
Director: Tom McCarthy
Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Live Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Paul Guilfoyle, James Sheridan and Len Cariou
Rating: ****
Based on actual events that occurred in Boston, USA, Spotlight is an intense film that deals with investigative journalism. It is the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning team’s fight against the system that stirred a hornet’s nest in the locality and the Roman Catholic Church.
The film gets its name from the section of The Boston Globe which specifically deals with exploratory stories. This section is handled by a four-member team headed by editor Walter Robinson, also known as Robby, reporters Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer.
With the appointment of the new editor Marty Baron in July 2001, the Spotlight team is assigned to investigate allegations against a defrocked priest John Geoghan, who was accused of sexually abusing children in his parish in 1976.
It is during this investigation that the team realises that, torn between faith and knowledge of the crime, the issue is not a one-off case, but a plague that involves about 80 priests. Moreover what was more intriguing is that the people at the helm in the Archdiocese of Boston were aware of the malaise and were systematically brushing the cases under the carpet.
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