Spotlight – Film Review

This film is such an important one to watch about investigative journalism. It takes place in Boston back in 2001 based on the true story on the story behind the Catholic Church. The shots of Boston help bring the authenticity to the film even though a lot of the film was shot in Canada. The group of actors in the Spotlight team had great chemistry and they felt like a real team that knows how to work together. Mark Ruffalo was the stand out to the series with Rachel McAdams a close second with John Slattery and Michael Keaton rounding out the main cast well. Stanley Tucci was a great supporting character as always bringing his gravitas to the film.

The story is pretty well focused on unfolding the truth with starting off with just one case of Sexual Abuse from a priest to multiple other cases. I enjoyed the slow burn that the film took to uncover what the Catholic Church has done to cover up all the priests abuse on children. I felt the show wasn’t biased one way or another but it was more about revealing the truth and making sure justice is served — no one is above the law even the Catholic Church. I’m glad that they were level in the view point of the story and it wasn’t an anger attack on them. It was more about the passion for the story to get it right and to make sure the right things happened when the truth was told.

They knew and they let it happen! It could’ve been you, it could’ve been me, it could’ve been any of us.

9/11 was an interesting part of the film. It didn’t carry much weight to the overall story but was apart of the historical events in 2001. Working in the news does have its priorities when a major story like the terrorist attack happens. Seeing the film portray the victim’s stories is well shown on screen. The plot points around the fact the Boston Globe had received prior knowledge about the incidents but did nothing felt like it didn’t have much overall impact but the story did get out and the truth was known. These people made a huge impact on the world in 2002 and I’m glad this story was brought to film.

Some of my negatives with the film some are minor and others are more major. The main issue I had with the film is that Liev Schreiber character motivation to go after the story of the Catholic church didn’t feel explained. He felt the most disjointed to the film more than the other characters. I didn’t understand why he wanted to go after them to expose the lie across the world. I wished they showed a personal connection on screen. The other minor thing that they got wrong was that they referenced the September 11th attacks as “9/11” which wasn’t used until many years later. Other than that there weren’t many other negatives to the film. It was a well paced thriller. Looking forward to seeing how this film does in Awards season.
9.5/10