Review

• So Spotlight is a new investigative journalism movie starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, and others.
• And it’s about this Boston Globe team that’s investigating some of the Church scandals in the Boston area and the politics/psychology behind them all.
• And despite some issues, I’d say this is a pretty solid movie overall.

• So let me say: this movie does not start great.
• For the first half hour, it doesn’t feel like anything important is going on, and more than a couple of the characters felt pretty interchangeable.
• But luckily, we soon get to the investigation and that’s when things start going well.
• Rachel McAdams, first of all, is not the one I was expecting to steal this movie.
• But ultimately, for that first half hour, she’s what had me compelled in the story. I thought she was the most solid character from the start.
• Then once we pass the halfway mark, that’s when Mark Ruffalo has the “spotlight” on him…
• And once Ruffalo has that time to shine, he kills it. He was absolutely fantastic for the second half of this movie.
• Michael Keaton and John Slattery I thought were fine, and I understand why the two of them were there, but their characters just felt kinda unnecessary.
• If the script focused up on just McAdams and Ruffalo as the two leads, they could have been developed more.
• But it felt like the investigation just outweighed the characters sometimes.
• Plus the dialogue felt a little wooden towards the beginning.
• Like I said, when we get to the investigation, it turns around a bit though. That’s when the dialogue (especially interviews with victims) feel much more personal and impactful.
• And that second half was GREAT filmmaking.
• The directing stayed consistent throughout though, and I really liked the directing. It had this Black Mass meets Danny Boyle feel to it, where there was always tension when tension needed to be there.
• So in the end, I thought Spotlight was a little uneven and the beginning was pretty weak.
• But once the movie got going, the performances were great, especially from Mark Ruffalo, the script fixed itself up, and I liked the directing of the entire movie.
• So I’ll say that Spotlight is a Good Time and Definitely Worth Checking Out.
• And I’m hearing some Oscar praise for this movie, which I don’t totally buy into, but I also wouldn’t object to should it be nominated…

***

So guys, those are my thoughts on Spotlight! What are your thoughts on this movie if you’ve seen it? Let me know in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.