Spotlight (2015) Review

Spotlight (2015) Drama & History

After watching Spotlight yesterday, I felt heartbroken, disgusted and furious. The topic, plot and dialogues built around them are amazingly good, but what's this movie's strongest point still remains remarkable acting of fantastic assembly cast - from Keaton and Ruffalo, to Huff and Creighton.

My opinion about Thomas McCarthy was fairly split. Although he had done some pretty good ("The Visitor", "The Station Agent"), but also some average ("Win Win", "Million Dollar Arm") and even bad ("The Cobbler") movies, he had only directed 5 of them before "Spotlight", so I was inclined not to prejudge. Before watching the movie I've heard some pretty good comments about how he dealt with directing, and I have to say that he did pretty fair job with it. His and Singer's job as screenwriters, however, was done remarkably. It is one of those scripts where you can notice writers weren't afraid to be progressive, to input lots of names, events and different speaking styles to make it more realistic, active and suspenseful. You can definitely notice Singer has previously worked on lots of Crime TV series, as the script unravels in very thrilling, climatic way it usually happens in Crime TV shows.

On the other hand, acting was just superb. I think this movie should serve as a benchmark for all the well-acted movies that are yet to come. I believe that, if Academy was to nominate 10 supporting actors this year, all 4 of them - Keaton, Ruffalo, Tucci and Schreiber would've gotten a nod. Sadly, beside Rylance ("Bridge of Spies"), Stallone ("Creed"), Elba ("Beasts of no Nation"), Shannon ("99 Homes") and young Tremblay ("Room"), I can hardly see more than Keaton and Ruffalo in that race. I also think Rachel McAdams does a pretty good job as an only female Spotlight reporter. In fact, her "interrogation" scenes with Keaton tie with Ruffalo's amazing "It could've been you, it could've been me, it could've been any of us" monologue for the best scenes of, not just the movie, but maybe even the whole year.

To be honest, Spotlight is no Birdman, but it is still the greatest drama of the year. It's a very clever movie, with immensely important topic and near-perfect dialogues, crafted both by amazing actors and great screen writing. If "The Revenant", "Joy" or "Hateful Eight" don't prove to be better, this is the movie I will root for during the Oscar night.