State of Play opens up with two random deaths on the streets of Washington, DC. A Congressman’s assistant gets hit by a subway car and an other man gets gunned down in an alley. When newspaper reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe hears more about the suspicious nature of the deaths he decides to try and find out more in order to break open the story for his newspaper. Slowly Cal begins searching for clues and hints about something bigger, but with his close connect to the Congressman and his rocky past with many other political big wigs, all of his uncovered information is leading him further down dark paths of greater cover ups. Together with the help of a rookie reporter Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), Cal must decide how far he wants to go with the information before he puts his life and whole being in danger.