MovieChat Forums > Spotlight (2015) Discussion > Keaton's character "forgot" the story ab...

Keaton's character "forgot" the story about 20 priests

posted 8 years ago by pound68
6 replies | jump to latest

I was surprised how little was made of the fact that Keaton's department had buried a story on pedophile preists some years ago and he conviently "forgot" about it. I really thought it was building to a reveal that Slattery's character was covering for the church. It made for an interesting revelation but he sure seemed to get a free pass there. I get that he outed himself, I imagine out of guilt, but it seemed like that point was brushed aside pretty quickly.

[–] snowmonkeyguam 8 years ago

Well in my honest opinion
Robbie's moment of revelation actually made for the perfect twist for the story. Whether it was part of the true version of the accounts, it was a great bait and switch between Ben and Robbie.
To address your point, it certainly was and looked like a big deal to them. They looked floored...realistically, and confused. So did Robbie. He also played the best secret antagonist in that here is your heroic force throughout the film, then we come to find as a Metro guy in the past, he represents Boston's indifference to the crimes. Ben is basically the Metro Robbie In some ways.

Now I know there is a scene where McAdams's character shows Robbie a clip and he realized it then, but I guess throughout the film it seemed as though he was always fighting off his past self.

[–] johnral (138) 7 years ago

I think this is one of the more intriguing aspects of the movie. I'm assuming that it is based on the true story. My take on it is that often people with some authority to right wrongs (or bring wrongs to light) lose their barometer on what is a real story, and what is important. They are faced with so many potential issues that a real story/issue can get buried among the chaff. For example, one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims actually escaped and was interviewed by the police, but they did not believe him and actually returned him to the serial killer; when a diligent investigation at the time could have prevented many more deaths. Police officers and lawyers and judges (and apparently the press) are confronted with many potential injustices, and they face a difficult job of sorting the real stories from the junk. And in this instance in Spotlight, perhaps the reporter just missed it years earlier. He might not have known the scope of the issue, or he might have thought it too difficult to prove, or he might simply have not believed it.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8759) 6 years ago

Yeah, they say the story got "buried in Metro." I guess that's the section of the paper that deals with stories about the city that aren't considered to be worthy of the front page?

I think when Michael Keaton's character says he forgot, I think we're supposed to take him at his word. And I'm also assuming this was an element of the story that was based on something that really happened.

It would be interesting to get the real guy's explanation.

[–] CelluloidSelf (3) 6 years ago

Yes nobody is perfect, and it leads to this great line by their new editor

Marty Baron: Sometimes it's easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around the dark. Suddenly, a light gets turned on and there's a fair share of blame to go around. I can't speak to what happened before I arrived, but all of you have done some very good reporting here. Reporting that I believe is going to have an immediate and considerable impact on our readers. For me, this kind of story is why we do this.

[–] Who (5146) 2 years ago

Great quote. Loved the way Liev S. played Baron.

Robbie was a local guy who fit in with the Boston in-crowd, unlike the outsiders Garabedian and Baron. He was one of the gang and was like all the others who were saying “you’re going to sue the Church” and “we covered that, there’s no story there”. Until Baron asked him to take on the story. Robbie looked surprised but was open to it. Then he encountered resistance from his lawyer friend Jim, and the other lawyer MacLeish (Billy Crudup) and it raised his suspicions. Finally he sees through the “guy leans on a guy” network of deception and has to come to grips that he was, conscious of it or not, a part of it.

Another great quote from this movie:

Mark my words, Mr. Rezendes. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.

[–] Rolltide (964) 2 years ago

How could any reporter worth a dime forget a story about 20 abusing priests from a credible source? Macleish was certainly a credible source.

Early in the spotlight investigation they expressed surprise at how many priests were involved in this when it was fewer than 20. Then they learned that there might be 90 from Sipe's research.

As for the Bradlee(Not a catholic) character being a shill for the church?. No I think his concern was that the story would come across as a hit piece on the church.