First and foremost, thank you to Lionsgate for allowing me to review AFFAIRS OF STATE, starring Adrian Grenier!
Affairs Of State starts off with what is actually the end of the movie.
Michael Lawson (David Corenswet) looking to make acquaintances and get into the circle of Mary Maples (Faye Grant) , who has contacts with people that could possibly be running for President of the United States of America. He’s also willing to do whatever it takes, even performing sexual acts with Maples herself to get what he wants. Maples invites Lawson to the Maple Foundation Fundraiser to raise money for The United Party. Lawson then talks with one of his college classmates named Kevin (Brandon Hardesty) and asks his advice on what to do. Lawson runs into Rob Reynolds (Adrian Grenier), who is running The United Party, that plans to get a Senator elected President.
Lawson had worked for Senator Lester Garrett told him he had a pain in his lower abdomen. He later died of pancreatic cancer. He met his roommate and best friend Callie (Thora Birch) who had dirt on pretty much everyone in D.C.
At the Maple Foundation Fundraiser, Texas Senator John Boland Baines (David James Elliott) is speaking to the entire party, Lawson asks a woman to deliver a message to Reynolds. They meet in private and discuss what was stated on the napkin’s message, a thumbdrive that Callie had in her possession, containing video of a judge performing sexual acts on another man. Lawson is trying to get a job/position aboard the party. Reynolds gives in and gives him a job.
Lawson heads to the office to turn over the thumbdrive to Reynolds. He is surprised by the envelope he is handed, full of cash. He is also surprised when Reynolds asks if Callie Roland (Thora Birch) is looking for a job, continuing to ruin bad people. Reynolds also tells Lawson that he paid six months of rent for him, even though he didn’t get asked to. Reynolds gets a phone call from Mad Cash (Nathan Walker), the artist whose music he is listening to and has plans to use for the campaign to bring in the Black and Latino vote. Reynolds sends Lawson to talk and work for Judith Baines (Mimi Rogers), little does he know, he will only be doing one type of “work.” Baines was told by Maples of some of Lawson’s “work” experience and demanded the same. Senator Baines’s daughter from a previous marriage, Darcy, comes to town and a party is thrown in her honor at the Baines’s home.
Darcy tells Lawson he will give up everything for her while she starts to dance with him. Lawson is dumbfounded by the thought, but does seem to like the attention from the young lady. The next day, Reynolds informs Lawson that he will be accompanying the Senator to Texas. He is surprised after arriving in Texas the next morning, by Darcy cooking breakfast for he and the Senator. They are in town to talk to a potential backer for the political party. While the trio are in Texas, Reynolds takes Callie’s friend Tanya (Eugena Washington) on a date, what he didn’t know, was that she only agreed to go on the date as a favor to Callie and to try to see if Reynolds would put in a good word for her as far as her television career. She embarrasses Reynolds when she leaves the table to go talk to a basketball player. Reynolds talks to Mad Cash and has Tanya beat up. This enrages Callie. She calls Lawson and tells him that she will have Reynolds killed or at least get her revenge.
The entire time that Lawson has been putting in “work” with the Senator’s wife, he has not been wanting to do it, preferring to put an end to the so-called “work,” but Judith says that there will be no end and if it is brought up anymore, that she will tell Reynolds that Lawson raped her, reminding him that she had his DNA on her person. She also tells Lawson to find a new place for them to be together and not at a hotel. Lawson tells Callie that he needs her to leave their apartment the next afternoon because he needed the place to himself. What he didn’t know, was that Callie was going to exact her revenge by recording what he was doing with the Senator’s wife.
Everything is coming to the forefront at the worst possible time, the same night, the Senator is planning on announcing his run for the Presidency.
I won’t spoil the ending. All I will say is that this movie is probably true as to what goes on in Washington D.C. with people doing whatever they need to get wherever they want, regardless of consequences.
The acting is pretty solid, especially David Corenswet, Thora Birch, Mimi Rogers, David James Elliott and Adrian Grenier. Grenier is calculating, always looking at the bigger picture.
RATING: A (SOLID)
Lionsgate’s AFFAIRS OF STATE Release Info:
Cast:
Thora Birch, Mimi Rogers, Adrian Grenier, David James Elliott, Grace Victoria Cox, Faye Grant, Betsy Landin, Brandon Hardesty, Morgan Cryer Eugenia Gonzales, Bonnie Johnson, Alexis Leggett, David Corenswet, Robert Shepherd, Chel Brickhouse
Synopsis:
In his quest for power, D.C. aide Michael Lawson (David Corenswet) will do anything to take part in Senator Baines’s (David James Elliott) White House campaign, including blackmailing Baines’s shady advisor (Adrian Grenier, TV’s “Entourage”) and sleeping with the candidate’s wife (Mimi Rogers). But when he gets involved with the senator’s alluring daughter (Grace Victoria Fox), Lawson learns his dangerous game could have a deadly payoff. Also starring Thora Birch (Patriot Games), this pulse-pounding thriller is a perfect match for today’s turbulent political climate.
Trailer:
