Movie Reaction: Spotlight

Formula: All the President's Men + Primal Fear*
*But not really either at all. I'm looking for better comparisons

Cast: It's hard to say who the lead is. Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian D'Arcy James are all members of the Spotlight team. Liev Schreiber and John Slattery are other editors for the paper. Stanley Tucci and Billy Crudup are lawyers involved in the investigation.

Plot: This is based on the Spolight team of the Boston Globe, the special division of the paper who in 2002 broke the story about the Catholic church molestation cover ups. It's about how they built the story, not the fallout from it.

Thoughts:
I'd heard a lot of good things about this movie going in and I was mostly curious to see how it was all handled. There's a lot of angles this could take. It could be about saintly reporters taking on a corrupt system. It could be about vilifying the Catholic church. It could focus on the victims using the paper to be heard or the city who ignored them. It settles on making this about the investigation itself and how the fact that it took this long to come out is a failure on everyone: the church, the lawyers who helped them, the papers that refused to cover the story earlier, and the city that protected the church. It's not concerned with the villains or the victims really. It's about building the story.
It's hard to highlight any one of the actors for doing a great job because this is so much an ensemble. They all have their own stories they are working through. They're all tied to the scandal through family, friends, proximity, or history and all chasing their own leads. Ruffalo gets the biggest single moment in the movie and he nails it. This is perhaps the least flashy I've ever seen McAdams. Keaton holds it all together. I had no idea that Liev Schreiber could underplay this much. As the new chief editor of the Globe, he's the one who gets the Spotlight team on this story in the first place and he's so controlled the whole time. That's the unifying trait about all the performances: they are all very controlled and grounded. These are reporters doing their job. They are doing their job well, and they know that it's important work, but they aren't superheroes.
Given the subject matter and style of the movie, I was pleased by how well paced it was. I wasn't bored at any points. It zips from one story to another fluidly and ties them all together in satisfying ways.

Elephant in the Room: Isn't the Catholic Church an easy target? It is, but Spotlight isn't going after Catholics. It's going after the institution. Many of the people on both sides of this are people of faith trying to make the best of a bad situation. I was impressed how even-tempered the movie was about things, because it could be a furious movie, given the awfulness of what is being investigated. Instead, it opts for a more sober perspective.

To Sum Things Up:
This is my second movie in a row that's great simply because it's executed impeccably. The cast, script, look, and tone are all spot on. There is not a weak link in the cast, who are all doing some of the best work of their careers. I'm perfectly fine with this being an Oscar front runner.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend