This true story of a successful journalist who was found to have made up nearly all his stories was a much bigger scandal in the US than over here. After all, the revelation that reporters can sometimes be economical with the truth is not exactly earth-shattering is it? It's actually only when you watch the documentary short that goes with the DVD that you realise how far this journalists' fraud went; he was paid tens of thousands of dollars for his work when it was syndicated and he would often libel perfectly innocent people, causing great distress. Yet despite the fact that these facts are missing from the film, it is still surprisingly gripping for what seems such an innocuous topic. But that's not the reason most of us watch this film. No it's because, the central character is played by Mr Darth Vader himself. Poor Hayden Christensen took a lot of criticism for his performance in the second Star Wars film. He seemed more like a Ewok trapped in the beams of a light-sabre than the incarnation of evil. Well, he's certainly a lot better in this film. As the devious and lying reporter, Mr Christensen, performs with the sort of arrogance and wickedness, used to cover up his own adolescent inadequacies, that makes you realise what George Lucas saw in the first place. Maybe this bodes well for the final instalments.
Review of Shattered Glass
