Shattered Glass

Lions Gate films presents

Starring: Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Steve Zahn, Hank Azaria, Rosario Dawson

Directed by: Billy Ray

Rating:****1/2

Plot: We follow the true story of a young journalist named Stephen Glass who falls from the top of his peers and shatters at the bottom. Once it is found out that he completely made up most of the articles he wrote for The New Republic.

Acting: If you don't remember Hayden Christensen he was in the under rated Star Wars Episode II as Anakin Skywalker. Now his acting talents were not really presented in that film, but they are here. Hayden plays Stephen Glass a nervous but suave young man who knows exactly what to say at the right time to the right person. Hayden was perfect in every way. He somehow takes a man easily hated and turn him into a character you can feel for. Glass worked for a magazine for bad pay and where it seemed only kissing ass got you a good pay check. Glass's first editor named Michael Kelly played by Hank Azaria, which is weird the last movie I remember him in was America's Sweethearts. Hank is good here and his character Kelly is a good man who does the right thing at the magazine and is fired. He is replaced by the kiss assing Chuck Lane played by Peter Saarsgard. I love this guy as a character actor I have seen him a lot before and I hope he gets more roles after this. Peter doesn't steal scenes he adds to them and his disregarding attitude made you feel pain for Glass as the movie went on. The other actors who I personally was amazed were even in the movie were Steven Zahn from the road horror flick Joy Ride and Rosario Dawson from Men in Black 2 and Street's of New York and The Rundown which is still in theatres. I like her but she is always in weird roles as an actress. She also has only like two scenes in this movie which is depressing. These two play writers for Forbes web site who slowly break down Glass's lies. To break things down for you, great acting across the board.

Directing/Writing: Reality bites. This movie is really simple but brilliant. We follow Glass as he works at the office of The New Republic which is the magazine read in Air Force One. Glass a very young man starts to put himself under a lot of pressure pointlessly. In board meetings he charms up the other writers and editors and staff by telling lively stories. He charms up all the woman in the office by complementing them. Christensen helps a lot with a great acting job by pulling all of this across the screen. Now what happens next is horrible and also enjoyable in some aspects. Glass turns in an article that is too good to be true. It's about a 15 year old hacker who hacks his way into a major organizations web site. So they hire him for a lot of money and so this young man screwed the system. Glass pitches this amazing story off to his new editor Lane and they print it without thinking twice. Problem is, it was all fake. At Forbes web site Zahn's character figures out about this by just simply looking for all of the information to back the story up and can't find any. Suddenly things avalanche, Glass tries to lie and sneak his way out of it by making fake web sites and numbers to call where friends or relatives will pick up and act like they are someone else. He almost gets away with until things start to shake up and his editor and once old friend figures out the game and then realizes that most of Glass's stories were made up. You can either joyful watch a lying sneaky little man go down. Or you can relate to him because everyone at sometime in their life has put a little sugar on something just to keep moving in life. Glass was also fighting a corrupt system of journalism, but broke the rules by basically making his own stories which in the future could hurt someone. This is not a black and white movie where the bad man goes down. You think about it and you leave thinking about yourself and where you stand in life. A powerful movie hopefully not looked over in the November madness.

Overall: Powerful film with strong character's and brilliant acting by everyone involved. The film is a gritty chunk of reality in which you need to think about society and yourself as you leave the theatre. It also makes you wonder if you should always take what you read in these magazines or news papers seriously because you never know the author's ideologies are. The only thing you really haft to take from this film is that don't make to many lies in your life, because they may come back and seriously bite you in the ass.