Very disappointing...

Sick Product of a Sick System

Sadly Over-hyped

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Yet another big budget, Hollywood movie about the wild, fast paced world of journalism. It is not exactly an exciting premise but Hollywood keeps romanticizing this profession. Don't expect All the President's Men, Absence of Malice, or even the Pelican Brief here. This is just Ron Howard stockpiling a bunch of big names much like the Yankees do. I read reviews where this is a realistic look at news...yada yada...so what? That doesn't make good cinema. There is much shouting, arguing, fighting including a fistfight between Close and Keaton to show just how much convictions their characters have. I don't find anyone or anything particularly likable or interesting in this tedious piece.

'The Paper' is solid entertainment. The film shows the high tension jobs of reporters working in a big city tabloid paper. The plot is rather implausible, but the film has a cracking pace and good performances all round. Michael Keaton is dynamite as the workaholic editor of the paper who's immersed in his job and neglecting his pregnant wife Marisa Tomei. Robert Duvall, Glenn Close and Jason Robards all do well in supporting roles. The ending is full of loop-holes but somehow manages to work. Worth watching for it's energy and fine acting.Overall 7/10

I've been to a newsroom only twice in my life. First, it's to collect some lucky draw winnings, and I had a sneak peek into the hustle and bustle of a newsroom from behind a glass panel. The next one was more up close and personal, because a journalist friend brought me right up to his desk (and an incredibly piled up one at that), and I had first hand view of how news got made. Or at least it seemed that the next day's articles were done up because there were few people left in the office, and there was a group huddled at one corner.Ron Howard's The Paper was one of those films that I didn't catch at the cinemas (at that time, the teenage me only recognized Michael Keaton of his 1989 Batman and 1992 Batman Returns fame), and missed a number of scheduled telecast and re-runs on television. So it's no surprise that I snapped up the DVD the minute I saw it in the discount bins at the store. And I wonder just why the heck it took me so long to get down to watching this, with no regrets (save for the technical aspect of the presentation).Keaton plays a Henry Hackett, a sub-editor for a small time tabloid in New York. Being a go-getting workaholic, he often puts his family life aside, which of course puts his very pregnant wife Martha (Marisa Tomei) under a lot of stress especially with her pregnancies woes, and not being able to get out there and do stuff. For their financial stability, one of the many subplots here involves her getting Henry a job interview at a larger paper, The Sentinel, and threatens him not to sabotage his own opportunities for advancement, which we learnt that he does so quite frequently in order to stay where he is.And it's not rocket science why too, as the bunch of folks he's working with is really madcap, and I think I too can thrive in such as a stressful, chaotic, but totally livewire environment. Each character presents a separate subplot which intertwines with Henry's life, and in one scene which I was totally mesmerized with, was when everyone dropped by Henry's office, and it went just off the hook. Wonderful stuff there, especially when you have Glenn Close as a rival sub-editor who happens to be the office bicycle (erm, that means everyone had had a ride), Robert Duvall as an ailing editor stricken with cancer and trying to reconcile with his estranged daughter, and Randy Quaid in a totally hilarious role as the bummer in the office.All these while the team had to debate with the front page story for the next day, centered on reporting what's accurate and doing what's right – the social responsibility in being a paper, with pressure on them because they had missed the previous day's scoop. Everyone's preoccupied with their own personal agenda, set against an office where the air-conditioner isn't working and driving temperatures and tempers up. It's work and family over a period of 24 hours, and I felt that this film had a story that ranks itself up there with other films that deal with their narratives over the same time period.You'd have come to expect a certain assured standard from director Ron Howard, and this film demonstrates nothing less. Everything naturally comes together perfectly toward the end like the birth of a new dawn, with relationships bruised but not battered, and what I also enjoyed here was John Seale's superb cinematography which had this extremely fluid motion when bringing us in and around a newsroom for that office tour each time we run around like crazy with Henry. The paper would be one of my personal favourites, and my only regret (besides the technical aspects of the DVD) was why it had taken me this long to uncover this gem of an enjoyable film.

"Things can change in 24 hours." One of the quotes from the movie "The Paper" I have learned a lot from this movie, it showed me how things got done, what is the competition and what can change in 24 hours. With an all-star cast of Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall and Marisa Tomei and more, they used there acting skills to show what the characters would be like in a real paper business. Well throughout the movie I have noticed that everyone is always working from sun up to sun down, this is a curial thing to make sure that there news is the most up to date as it can be. Throughout the movie they are covering a story about two African American kids that were blamed for a murder, except for they did not do it, they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. So throughout one day in the movie "the Paper" they were trying to see if the kids were not guilty so they can be the only ones to print the "right" thing on there front page. This shows journalism at its best, they had teams that went to different places trying to get all the information they can get to prove this innocence's. After hours and hours of trying and going to places and getting shot down, they finally went to a cop and got what they needed, saving it just in time, printing what they wanted to print. Another thing was that just like in the real world there were chains of commands, this was broken a lot in this movie to get what the wanted for the story, but there was some scud things, such as the bar fight and the fight in the paper room. The story gave a great example at what goes on in a paper room and what can happen or and will.