Spotlight (2015)

SPOTLIGHT  (2015)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Tom McCarthy
    Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams,
    Liev Schreiber, Brian d'Arcy James, John Slattery, 
    Stanley Tucci, Jamey Sheridan, Elena Wohl,
    Neal Huff, Billy Crudup, Doug Murray, Len Cariou
Here's a movie that won't restore anybody's faith in the governing apparatus of the Catholic Church: a topical, fact-based thriller about the team of Boston Globe reporters who dug up the dirt on the clergy sex-abuse scandal around the turn of the millennium. It was a story many didn't want told, from the people in the pews up to the venerable and possibly criminal Cardinal Bernard Law, who allowed known and suspected pedophiles - a lot of them - to go on molesting children, by looking the other way and transferring them from place to place. "All the President's Men" remains the model for this kind of thing, and "Spotlight" takes a similar approach, revealing the details of a crime and its coverup by tracking the journalists as they try to hustle up enough solid information to crack the puzzle and tell the tale. Alan Pakula might've brought more artistry to the Watergate story, but the underlying issue here is just as disturbing, and the conspiracy to keep the facts under wraps is just as insidious and pervasive. As an ensemble acting piece, it's outstanding. To single anybody out would be difficult, not just because the actors are all that good, but because they're all perfectly cast. That includes veteran character actor Len Cariou as Cardinal Law, who resigned in Boston in the wake of the Globe report, only to be reassigned to an honorary post in Rome.