Set in Washington DC, this is a slick political/corporate conspiracy thriller. It hits the ground running, and - while never remotely innovative - manages to be unpredictable and labyrinthine enough to generally hold our attention, though it sags somewhat in the middle.

Russell Crowe plays Cal McAffrey, a veteran investigative newspaper journalist (and something of a walking cliche, being unkempt, uncompromising etc.). His current efforts - overseen by his impatient and exasperated editor, Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren) - are directed towards unravelling the possible connections between a string of grisly murders. This is a potential news story, rather than simply a police case, because of its links to the anti-corruption campaign of US congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck). The plot then thickens, as they always do in these films. Stephen is an old friend and former college roommate of Cal. Stephen's wife, Anne (Robin Wright Penn in by far the film's best performance), may have been romantically involved with Cal. And one of the murder victims is Stephen's young female assistant.with whom he may have been having an affair.

All these Peyton Place-like interconnections are, however, dwarfed by the meat of the matter: the Machiavellian activities of Pointcorp, a mercenary company making a mint out of the privatisation of homeland security (or, as one character memorably puts it, "The Muslim terror gold rush.") As Stephen remarks, "We pay to train these men, and you get rich by killing them". It's this theme that makes for an intriguing yarn.

State Of Play isn't a bad story at all, in its own generic terms. It's burdened with very silly coincidences, but just about gets away with them.