The Paper

January 14, 2006 - This 1994 comedy centers around The New York Sun, a tabloid newspaper that favors splashy headlines like "Gotcha!" Michael Keaton stars along with Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Marisa Tomei and Randy Quaid. Ron Howard directs.

Keaton plays Henry Hackett, the Sun's metro editor. Marisa Tomei is his wife, a former reporter at the paper, who's very, very pregnant. Glenn Close is the paper's managing editor and Robert Duvall plays some kind of other editor type.

There are lots of subplots going on here concerning the personal lives of the characters. But, the main plot centers around the paper's coverage of a news story. Two white men have been found shot to death in a black neighborhood. It may be retaliation for a shooting the day before, but when cops arrest two black teens for the crime, scanner chatter has even the cops saying the bust is bogus.

On this busy news day, Hackett just happens to have an interview at a rival newspaper. While there, he sneaks a look at some notes on the editor's desk. Based on this information and on the scanner chatter, Hackett is convinced the teens are being railroaded. Now, all he has to do is get the story before the paper goes to print.

Overall Review: ** The movie is about 1:45 long. I was with it for about the first 1:15. After that, I felt it went over-the-top so much that it jumped the shark.

Also, as I mentioned, there are a lot of subplots going on here. Duvall's character has prostate cancer and he's estranged from his daughter; Keaton's character is job hunting and dealing with a pregnant wife; the wife helps him get the story, then has to be rushed to the hospital; Close's character is sleeping with the feature's editor, and she's job hunting. With all this stuff going on, it doesn't make the staff at the Sun look particularly focused on what is a huge story.