A) Russell Crowe had to become seriously overweight for this role… a far cry from his role as Maximus in Gladiator.
B) State of Play is a great movie. Here’s the rundown:

In State of Play, Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is a hot-to-trot journalist for the Washington Post. One day while at his desk minding his own business, he is approached by Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) who is asking if he was a friend of Congressman Steven Collins (Ben Affleck). Why does Della want to know? Because Collins’ assistant, Sonya, has just turned up dead along with a few others. Cal and Della insist on finding out the whole story before anything goes to print, despite the pressure from their boss who doesn’t care about the whole story, she just needs something worth reading in order to keep the paper afloat. Drama and suspense envelope each scene as the plot begins to unfold and pieces of this mystery fall into place with Cal right in the center of it all.

State of Playkept me guessing and trying to put pieces together, but to no avail. In the end, I wasn’t expecting things to turn out the way they did, which is just what you want a suspense film to do… Trick you.

Crowe and McAdams played their roles spectacularly, especially for their characters being so far from their norm. Strong performances by both. This was an opportunity for them to show true talent and versatility, and they did just that. A strong performance by Ben Affleck as well, but let’s be honest – suspense is kind of his ‘thing’.  I wouldn’t expect any different.