Review: Spotlight

Think All the King’s Men or All the President’s Men. Spotlight sits alongside them and boasts a similarly robust approach to its subject.

And what a subject it is. This is a sober and chilling re-telling of a year-long investigation by reporters at the Boston Globe into child abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests.

It begins on a small scale. But the Spotlight team turns over a huge stone. Soon they uncover endemic abuse and a monumental cover-up that involves the highest levels of the church.

Raw and near the knuckle, this is a story about ordinary people denied a voice by the powerful and the corrupt. As unsettling as the cascade of unsavoury evidence that comes tumbling out of the closet is the sinister noise of the machinery cranking into gear to derail the investigation.

Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton play leading journalists Mike Rezendes and Walter “Robbie” Robinson as they lead their team in a battle against overwhelming odds.

And, make no mistake, the odds truly are against them. Thus this shameful tale unravels to send shockwaves around the world.

Director and co-writer (with Josh Singer) Tom McCarthy plays out this devastating expose as a detective story rather than a conventional thriller. It’s a race against the clock with Ruffalo in particular shining as the honourable reporter pursuing his story to its end.

Moreover Spotlight is a reminder that tenacity and integrity still sit at the heart of good, solid journalism. They drive Rezendes and Co – and give Ruffalo, Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Live Schreiber and others a professional and emotional hook on which to hang a superb ensemble performance.

It’s the enormity of it all that is staggering. That and the fact that a small team brought it all to book. Glorious stuff. Tony Earnshaw