It feels like a reporter investigating clues, a smart brain is essential, but things must be done step by step. The complicated judicial procedures must be followed when it is annoying, the cunning defense lawyers are difficult to deal with and must be rubbed softly, and the piles of dispatching catalogues give the whole film an inexplicable sense of routine.
The film is not the kind of flashy, bombastic film. The same goes for the reporters in the film, who can put their heads in the water and do real work. Confident, sophisticated, and satisfying.
It's forensic for the newspapers to expose child abuse scandals, and some scenes are just Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo scratching the stubble they haven't shave in three days in their humble office, which is exactly the kind of movie As it should be, the film finds a rich, engaging, yet unpretentious way to portray the journalist's basic work, conveying that tactile feel through filing cabinets and copiers.
View more about Spotlight reviews