Spotlight (2015)

[paramitch]

I loved this, and thought it was a worthy addition to McCarthy's credits list ("The Station Agent" is one of my all-time favorite films). I thought it was a cool, clean old-fashioned newspaper procedural, and beautifully done across the boards.

 

I could be completely wrong, but I got the feeling Ruffalo's character was separated from his wife; hence, the lousy apartment situation.

 

Yeah, I agree -- he pretty clearly implies to Garabedian that his wife isn't happy with him, then later tells Bradlee that the crappy apartment is temporary and that "they're working it out" or something like that.

 

I found Eric MacLeish to be one of the most fascinating characters in the movie. We start off thinking that he's yet another smarmy lawyer who's only concerned with making a cottage industry (to quote the movie) out of abuse victims, and then we're hit with the revelation that he alerted the Globe years ago about those twenty abusive priests. Here was a guy who initially tried to do the right thing, only to have it buried by the newspaper. So then he eventually capitulated to the system. The long-held resentment and anger we saw from Billy Crudup when MacLeish confronted Robby about the newspaper clip was really well-acted, IMO.

 

That single moment was, I felt, one of the strongest in the film. It added some real and unexpected nuance and complexity to MacLeish, and I thought Billy Crudup was just terrific in it. The scene was just one of so many  in this film that managed to communicate a complicated mix of arrogance, guilt, self-loathing, and regret.

 

I was vaguely amused that the Spotlight team is a four-person group composed of Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and...other guy.

 

I was actually surprised (in a good way) at the ways I felt the movie kept Brian d'Arcy James's character (Matt Carroll) front and center as an equal ensemble member. He was constantly present and involved in the action, and then we had just as many moments of him alone and dealing with the emotional aftermath as the others (and in fact one of the most powerful, with his realization that a "treatment center" was actually right around the corner from his house).

 

The other thing I like about Tom McCarthy's movies is that there's a gentle nuance to them. This movie could have turned the outrage meter to 11 and filled it with 5,000 word rants at top volume. Instead of Sacha getting in some priest's face and railing at him, she ruefully admits to Mike that she stopped going to church with her nana and hasn't told her why. Instead of Brian d'Arcy James' character when being told that the story has to wait, even though there's a "treatment centre" near his house, screaming at Robby "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!! THERE ARE CHILDREN!!!", he accepts it. Even Mike for all his anger only has one real outburst. The movie establishes the reporters' shock, disgust and anger, but it does so quietly and gently. Also, the movie recognized that even some of the characters that could have been straightforwardly depicted as sneering villains--Billy Crudup's lawyer and Jamey Sheridan's lawyer for the Church--were more nuanced than that

I really enjoyed this aspect of the film too (and totally agree with you about the many wonderful supporting performances -- Tucci, Cariou, Crudup, and all of the actors who played the victims with so much quiet dignity and heartbreak.

 

I loved Liev Schreiber -- probably my favorite surprise performance in the film for its stillness, quiet shyness, yet tempered with a steely and unshakable resolve. I thought Rachel McAdams was splendid as well and in a very difficult role -- she managed to always come across as both professional yet also as warm, caring and deeply empathetic. Her scenes with the victim she interviewed were all so kind. It wouldn't have worked if she'd been communicating any kind of remoteness there -- we needed to see that she was involved and invested.

 

Extraordinary acting from all involved, even the twitchy-if-adorable Mark Ruffalo. The one actor that seems to be consistently overlooked is Brian d'Arcy James, who isn't in big letters on the poster nor mentioned anywhere else I've seen. I thought he was great.

Me too. I liked Ruffalo -- I can understand the complaints that he was certainly the loudest and most excitable character, but it still felt real to me, just like a live wire type -- as if he he was just one of those people who burns a little hotter and faster than other people. And I especially liked that his outburst comes after he realizes how close he himself came to an abuse scenario at his own school (he was just lucky enough to pick a different sport) -- it was so much more subtle and less heavy-handed than the expected "personal" abuse story most producers would have insisted on (as others commented, so that Now It's Personal, etc.). Instead it stayed at a remove, yet was no less horrifying.

 

Incredibly well acted, important story, and a very good frame by which to tell it. I really appreciated the shooting styles to hammer things home. The multiple shots with the churches in the background, the pan from BC High to the Globe as Robby and Sacha walk out from their meeting, Joe Paterno coaching a Penn State football game on the tv in a bar, and the golf course. Normally scenes shot on a golf course are shot to show off the course, or show just how far away it is from everything. Choosing to shoot on that hole with the massive hill allowed the Boston skyline in the background to hammer home that this game wasn't an escape, and that everything really was intertwined.

 

Mad Max still heads up my 2015 list of films for it's overall ambition and production, but I certainly appreciate Spotlight.

 

I loved everything you mentioned as well -- the ever-present churches looming over the (tiny) figures of the humans in the drama, the heartbreaking little character moments (the traumatized young addict Dad pushing his daughter on the swing (under the shadow of the church) just killed me)... There was obviously a tremendous amount of thought given to subtext, framing, and underlying meaning to every scene.

 

(And I loved Mad Max:Fury Road too -- will always be my choice as best and most truly creative and astonishing picture of this year, but I am nevertheless very happy with Spotlight's win as well.)

 

Haven't seen it yet, but plan to.  Mark Ruffalo first caught my attention in You Can Count on Me.  While Laura Linney was good, it bugged me that her performance got all the attention.  I thought MR gave a very natural performance and that the two of them were credible as siblings despite the lack of any physical resemblance.

 

You Can Count On Me is one of my all-time favorite movies, and Ruffalo's deserved big entrance to the A-list, and I thought he was absolutely wonderful. He's really got tremendous range, so I just think that perhaps his playing something of the newsroom's loose cannon here (right after "The Normal Heart") may be hurting him here. He's a fantastic actor who's more than capable of playing things quiet -- see also his work in In the Cut, Collateral, and even 13 Going on 30).

Edited March 17, 2016 by paramitch

[Bruinsfan]

He was also awesome and almost unrecognizable in Foxcatcher.  DiCaprio gets all the press, but I think Ruffalo is my choice for best American actor in his forties.

He was also awesome and almost unrecognizable in Foxcatcher.  DiCaprio gets all the press, but I think Ruffalo is my choice for best American actor in his forties.

[Danny Franks]

That single moment was, I felt, one of the strongest in the film. It added some real and unexpected nuance and complexity to MacLeish, and I thought Billy Crudup was just terrific in it. The scene was just one of so many  in this film that managed to communicate a complicated mix of arrogance, guilt, self-loathing, and regret.

 

I agree. The idea that good men have given up on trying to do anything because they hit brick walls of silence is a powerful one, and ties into the unspoken complicity of so many people in the city and the Church. This was a guy who had done the right thing, and been let down by those who should have wanted to do the same. Perhaps if he'd had some colleagues willing to stand by him, like the Spotlight team had, he might have gone further.

 

Also, I've always liked Billy Crudup, and think he's very under-appreciated as an actor. Giving him more stuff to do is always good.

[SeanC]

Properly speaking, what MacLeish did in the novel was highly unethical for his profession.  Of course, trying to convince audiences of the paramount importance of client confidentiality to the legal profession is generally a lost cause.

[Milburn Stone]

Properly speaking, what MacLeish did in the novel...

 

 

I'm a little confused about the use of the word "novel." Was Spotlight based on a book, and if so, was this book fiction?

[anna0852]

I don't think it's a novel. I thought that they had been entered for original script at the Oscars.

[SeanC]

I'm a little confused about the use of the word "novel." Was Spotlight based on a book, and if so, was this book fiction?

That was a mis-type.  I should have said "film" (I don't know whether he did that in real life or not).

[CaughtOnTape]

That was a mis-type.  I should have said "film" (I don't know whether he did that in real life or not).

 

I think maybe in this instance, pointing that out is a moot point.  Not saying anything was protecting priests.  I'm not sure of too many people who would look at him and say "I mean, he broke his client confidentiality oath by turning in pedophile priests...clearly the man can't be trusted.  We should definitely find other counsel."

Which was more unethical?  

 

Considering how the media is destroying members of the Catholic church who knew and did nothing, what do you think they would've done to a lawyer?  Had it been me?  They couldn't have stopped me from pointing out priests I'd cut deals for in a lineup.  "Yep, it was that guy."

Edited March 22, 2016 by CaughtOnTape

[SeanC]

Considering how the media is destroying members of the Catholic church who knew and did nothing, what do you think they would've done to a lawyer? 

Nothing, since he was following the law that governs lawyers.  Lawyers are the only people in the world who are actively not allowed to say anything in that scenario.  One of the key precepts of the legal system is that everyone deserves legal representation, and confidentiality rules are a vital part of the functioning of the system.  Lawyers can't decide to forget them whenever the person is sufficiently unpopular, or the entire system collapses.  A lawyer like MacLeish would properly be disbarred.

 

I'm a lawyer, and legal ethics are often hard to follow, precisely because they often cut against what ordinary people would expect a person should do.  But those rules exist for a reason.

Edited March 22, 2016 by SeanC

[ChelseaNH]

Therapists have similar limitations.  They can't reveal information gained in sessions about past crimes.  However, they do have an exception which allows them to provide warning about crimes which have yet to occur.

[CaughtOnTape]

My eyes can't roll back far enough right now.

[scarynikki12]

For what it's worth, Eric MacLeish posted on his Facebook his recollections of his role in the story.  Here it is.  It doesn't seem that he did anything in real life that would get him disbarred so I think that the movie version was adjusted for the sake of the narrative.

[paramitch]

For what it's worth, Eric MacLeish posted on his Facebook his recollections of his role in the story.  Here it is.  It doesn't seem that he did anything in real life that would get him disbarred so I think that the movie version was adjusted for the sake of the narrative.

 

Wow, thanks so much for sharing that link! I felt bad for MacLeish after reading his post -- he is so enthusiastic about the movie even despite the fact that he definitely seems to have the right to be unhappy about his portrayal.

 

They key difference seems to be that he had the support and permission of the 20 victims whose names he gave to the Globe (so there was no question of ethics violations there), and that he appears to have consistently attempted to fight Law and the Church all along as best he could -- even against the Globe. It certainly appears to me that the Globe was certainly complicit in the cover-ups for a long time -- the movie implies this, but doesn't say it outright. (I especially felt that in the film, Bradlee comes across as being almost irrationally against pursuing the story, constantly trying to get the Spotlight team to let it go until about the halfway point.)

 

As MacLeish puts it in his post:

 

Around 1993, a Globe reporter wrote a piece about clergy abuse for the Sunday Magazine. In an incident witnessed by many Globe reporters, an editor at the Globe became irate and had a huge scene in the newsroom with the author of the article and another editor. Cardinal Law and his friends were incensed that the Globe was continuing to report about priest abuse. I also got a call from a Globe editor who told me that there would be no more articles about priest abuse in the newspaper.

 

I was very upset because I was getting more and more calls from victims of abuse perpetrated by priests of the Boston Archdiocese, some of who were still in service. Accordingly, I called my contact at the Globe in early December of 1993 and informed her that I had claims against 20 priests of the Archdiocese. She told me she could not write the story (even though she wanted to). I told her I was going to call the Herald. I then got a call from another reporter at the Globe, who wrote a short story (instead of a page 1 major news story – which this was) that was buried on page 42 of the Globe. The Herald article was actually much more informative.

 

 

 

I think what's a shame is that MacLeish is a really fascinating character in the film either way, and while I don't think he comes off as a villain in the movie, he certainly could have been given more credit for his efforts, which seemed to parallel Garabedian's in many ways (it's the omissions that are so damning with him -- until he responds about the 20 victims in the scene with Robinson) -- that he was in fact constantly trying to go public wherever victims and cases allowed him to go public legally, so it was never a matter of his not caring (or the Globe not being aware of his desire to help at any point):

 

In August of 2001, Walter Robinson of the Globe asked to meet with me. The Globe had a new editor and was finally investigating priest abuse in Boston. In the film, Robinson threatens to bring down my alleged “cottage industry” of “secret settlements” if I do not cooperate with the Globe. This scene portrays an event that never occurred. I welcomed the meeting with Robinson, told him what I knew about the size of the problem and the names of certain priests who stood out. I was with a new firm, but our old firm had had claims now against over 40 priests which I shared with Robinson. Unfortunately, I had not been able to get our files from the old firm and Robinson offered to talk to my old firm (and did) in an effort to get the files to us, but his request was refused. I do know that we were able to reconstruct and put together a list with the names of about 40 predatory priests and gave them to Robinson before the first article.

Robinson also wanted to know if I would get re-involved in priest abuse cases. I told him I would think about it and after consulting with my family, friends and law partners, I decided that I would. I was quoted in the very first Globe article. The very last thing on my mind was making money or protecting a cottage industry of secret settlements. There was no “cottage industry” and I was very open and public about the extent of priest abuse in Boston. It was just not until the Globe got a new editor that anyone was interested in hearing about it.

 

On December 15, 2002, the Globe named me one of seven individuals “who had made a difference” in the priest abuse scandal. I was the only lawyer named and my role was described as one where I forced the Archdiocese “to come clean.”

 

 

I do think Billy Crudup gave the fictionalized MacLeish some unexpected humanity and complexity, but after reading MacLeish's account (which appears to be backed up after some Googling as well), I definitely think the filmmakers let him down.

 

Thanks for sharing MacLeish's Facebook post -- I thought it was a generous response to the film's portrayal of him, and I really love that he is still so supportive of the movie itself.

Edited March 23, 2016 by paramitch

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Man. I knew that this movie was going to make me angry, and it succeeded.

 

Human nature is sadly not naturally wired for bravery, and I don't mean the action movie kind of bravery where the good guys beat up the villains, divert nuclear missiles, save the day and get the girl. I mean emotional bravery, the kind where you make the hard choices and do the right thing, even when it's hurtful. And that theme runs through Spotlight like electrical current, because even basically good, decent people would rather be not just silently complicit, but to condone ongoing abuse because otherwise they might have to examine the choices they've made. The priests are bad enough; preying on already vulnerable children, victimizing them even further, is the difference between being sick and being evil, but their enablers are almost worse, because they knew and they looked the other way.

 

The concept of Omerta is Italian, usually related to the Mafia, but I think it also fits here because the code of silence about what was happening ran so deep and was so widespread that I'm amazed anyone was able to cut through it, and it should be shocking but it isn't. I don't pretend to know what goes on in someone else's mind, but there were parents and teachers and neighbors and friends who either knew or suspected, and it took decades for the story to be told. Again, it should be inconceivable, but it's not.

 

There was a lot of very good acting in this movie, but I think I would have liked it if there had been more....outrage, I guess. At least in a Lifetime movie, the people trying to tell the story would be visibly pissed, but I guess that's the point, that these are folks just trying to do their job, not start a crusade. I was very impressed by Mark Ruffalo's performance, Caesar's haircut notwithstanding, but no one else was doing enough yelling for my taste.

[Hanahope]

On 11/25/2015 at 4:57 PM, attica said:

There's an aspect to this scandal that I think many non-catholics don't quite get. Child-raping priests are unlike coaches or teachers or other authority figures who behave similarly in that they are, dogmatically speaking, the Actual Gatekeepers between a person and heaven. The expression "God's Representative on Earth" isn't just a slogan: it's meant literally. So if molested by a priest, a devout person is perfectly reasonable in feeling spiritually bound to submit, to keep secret, to make excuses for, to forgive. I think it's also why many outside the church (including parents of abused kids) may have felt that however the church sought to handle it was capital R Right. Questioning the authority of a priest, or a monsignor, or a bishop really puts your immortal soul in real peril.  This has been drilled into you since birth. Not easy to overcome all that conditioning.

So I finally got a chance to watch this over the weekend.  Perhaps given my religious upbringing, Lutheran, which ended up teaching me to question everything (which I'm sure is not exactly what my parents and pastor hoped I'd learn from Martin Luther's actions, but there you go), I turned away from organized religion a while ago.  The fact that for all the good religion does, and while there are certainly some very good moral and religious people, I'm convinced that in the top heirarchy of organized religion, all they really care about is power and control.  They do these good works so they can continue to exert control and power over the people they are doing the good works for, and so they can continue to convince other people of their "goodness" in order to maintain their power and control over others.  

Of course its not limited to religion, we see that in virtually all organizations (e.g. government, business, education).  And not that women are immune, but I  think that if you get more women involved, there's most likely less of that 'power and control' desire, which is why the Catholic church tends to be the main culprit (not to mention the fact that when you deny men a normal and basic biological need, that frustration has to go somewhere).  

What I also really liked about this movie was demonstrating the value of investigative journalism and why that is best done in written format.  It just doesn't have the same gravitas as an internet link.

The way the movie kept mentioning how the lawyers had previously given information to the Globe and even that the Globe had written some earlier stories about priest abuse, yet there was no follow up, kept me thinking that there'd be someone at the Globe finally revealed as one who purposefully buried the stories, instructed the writers to drop it.  Yet when Robinson saw that it was he himself who had previously written the story about the 20 accused priests, all he said was "I don't remember it."  Like, how do you forget something like that?  How anti-climatic.

[Rickster]

On March 24, 2016 at 6:31 PM, Cobalt Stargazer said:

 

 

There was a lot of very good acting in this movie, but I think I would have liked it if there had been more....outrage, I guess. At least in a Lifetime movie, the people trying to tell the story would be visibly pissed, but I guess that's the point, that these are folks just trying to do their job, not start a crusade. I was very impressed by Mark Ruffalo's performance, Caesar's haircut notwithstanding, but no one else was doing enough yelling for my taste.

Maybe this was my problem, or maybe seeing at home rather than in a theater, but I could not imagine a duller (in a dramatic sense) retelling of such an important and heart-rending story. I am almost shocked at the accolades this got, and have to imagine they were for the subject matter rather than the skill with which the story was told.

I agree the acting was very good all round.

[BooBear]

On July 9, 2016 at 11:13 PM, Rickster said:

Maybe this was my problem, or maybe seeing at home rather than in a theater, but I could not imagine a duller (in a dramatic sense) retelling of such an important and heart-rending story. I am almost shocked at the accolades this got, and have to imagine they were for the subject matter rather than the skill with which the story was told.

I completely agree. It seemed on the order of a Lifetime movie of the week.  Though anything with Michael Keaton is going to be made that much better. I kept thinking of his character in "the paper".

I don't know. I am from Boston and know something of the legal players and I know the movies are always looking for these kinds of stories but it all rings hollow for me. Why did Spotlight do that story then? By that time there had been so much leakage of abuse stories it was widely known and considered true. The time was right for that story because, by and large, at that time, everyone had accepted it. It wasn't like the Spotlight story was the shock that made us all wake up. More like we all kind of had accepted it in our hearts and the Spotlight story was the Caboose of the train.  I bet plenty of invetigative journalists tried to tell this story earlier but the right people weren't ready to let it be told. But by this time, things had changed so sufficently in Boston, in the halls of power,  in the world, that "the village" said, ok, go ahead, it is time.  It takes a village to abuse kids and it takes a village to allow the story to be told.  I hate the fiction that journalism did this. Just like all jourmalism, partiularly the Globe, they woke up when the cat was well out of the bag. I don't understand how the reporters get all the credit when clearly it was the lawyers who made *EVERYTHING* happen and got the paperwork. All spotlight had to do was go to the courthouse and find the paperwork that the lawyers directed them to. Without Garabedian, Albano and Judge Sweeney they would have had nothing.  How is it "investigative journalism" to hang out with the lawyers and at the courhouse and have them give you everything including your sources. 

On March 24, 2016 at 6:31 PM, Cobalt Stargazer said:

think it also fits here because the code of silence about what was happening ran so deep and was so widespread that I'm amazed anyone was able to cut through it, and it should be shocking but it isn't.

I think every day things like this happen. Today even you will be interacting with something or someone that in 20 years you will be shocked at the code of silence.  I think the next big issue will be workplace abuse. Whenever these stories get out you always find someone fighting them years before and being ignored and covered up.  It is just depressing. 

[Sharpie66]

Quick note: After Cardinal Law’s funeral this week, some of the Boston survivors of priestly abuse expressed anger over his being accorded the full cardinal-in-Rome funeral, including a benediction by the pope. They spoke from Mitchell Garabedian’s office. Nice to see he is still fighting the good fight!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/europe/vatican-pope-cardinal-law-funeral/index.html

[Bruinsfan]

I don't care how good and forgiving a person Pope Francis is, I'm pretty sure there was a downdraft that would have put out forest fires when Law bought it.

[Sharpie66]

Another update on people from the film, in a Boston Globe column about Law's true nature: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/12/20/law-should-remembered-for-what-was-enabler-abuse/Z2AlpfsJ7uDRqytRHz4IMI/story.html

In it, I found out that Joe Crowley, the first survivor that Sacha spoke with (the one she met at the coffee shop, who ate a few muffins before she got there), died from a heart attack last year at the age of 58.

Quote

Joe Crowley’s big heart gave out last April. He was 58, and his wake was one big AA meeting, where dozens of people he helped stood up, like they were at a Pentecostal church, and talked about how Joe saved their lives. The only blessing is that Joe died before the priest who ruined his life got out of prison in July.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Sharpie66

[memememe76]

That is so sad. 58 is quite young. That scene was one of my favourites in the movie.

[Kel Varnsen]

Watched this last night and while I expected it to be good I couldn't believe how much it grabbed my attention. It had my complete focus the whole time. I was especially impressed since for a movie it was such a straightforward story, journalists doing their job. There were no bullshit twists or manufactured tension. You didn't have Mark Ruffalo finishing the story minutes before it had to go to print and there was no cheesy romance subplot between Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams.

 

Also is that Liev Schreiber's normal voice? Because he totally sounded like Dustin Hoffman.

[Kel Varnsen]

Also I know that journalists aren't typically math geeks, but their calculation of the number of pedophile priests was flawed. They said that 6% of the 1500 priests currently in Boston meant about 90 offender priests. Their list was 87 and they thought it proved that figure. But their list covered decades so it was current and former priests meaning it didn't prove that percentage (the count should have been higher).

 

Probably the most creepy scene for me was the very beginning where old copy told yiung cop there would be no trial. It made me wonder though, did the Boston DA's office have to pay out any settlements or anything? I know the church did, but I'm thinking if someone was assualted because a proscutor decided not to charge a priest for a previous sexual assault, can the DA be liable?

[ChelseaNH]

DAs are never liable.  Not a lot of checks and balances on that position.

[SeanC]

On 2018-01-22 at 1:46 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

Probably the most creepy scene for me was the very beginning where old copy told yiung cop there would be no trial. It made me wonder though, did the Boston DA's office have to pay out any settlements or anything? I know the church did, but I'm thinking if someone was assualted because a proscutor decided not to charge a priest for a previous sexual assault, can the DA be liable?

No, prosecutorial discretion is essentially absolute, barring something like bribery or deliberate malice.

[Kel Varnsen]

6 hours ago, SeanC said:

No, prosecutorial discretion is essentially absolute, barring something like bribery or deliberate malice.

Interesting, I figured there would be some sort of protection, but I was wondering if there was any kind of exception for 3rd parties in cases like this (at least in the movie, not sure if real life went down exactly like the beginning) where it could be argued that there was extreme negligence. Since it wouldn't be to hard to draw a line from a DA letting a predator priest get away with one crime, to that priest committing a subsequent crime. But I guess not.

[Bruinsfan]

Aren't district attorneys mostly elected officials (I think there are like 3 states where they're appointed instead, but Massachusetts isn't one of them). So at least if one fouls up badly enough there's the possibility of getting booted out. I'd think "looked the other way for hundreds of cases of child molestation by pedophile priests" would look pretty damning in an opponent's campaign ads.

[Dr.OO7]

I'm glad this finally came out on cable. 

I had a real Fridge Horror moment at the end, when they were listing the cities where scandals had been uncovered. I still remember the entire theater gasping in horror at the amount listed. But aside from the amount--204--many of these places were small towns. Given that we know that abusive priests were simply shuffled from one parish to another, odds are very likely that a priest responsible for abuse in a big city like Dublin was also responsible for abuse in a little hamlet like Gortahork.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Camille

[Sharpie66]

I am rewatching this on cable right now for the umpteenth time. Something just occurred to me when watching the opening prologue of Geoghan in the police station—it’s the entire movie in microcosm, showing the complicity of every institution that is shown to be culpable by the end of the film. It’s the Church, law enforcement, the lawyers, and even the press (the only newspaper who was even sniffing around was from a small press that got distracted easily, and none of the majors were anywhere to be found). I had always thought it was just to show the length of time Geoghan was molesting, but it does so much more. A very well-deserved Oscar for writing!

[Irlandesa]

On 1/25/2018 at 2:41 PM, Bruinsfan said:

Aren't district attorneys mostly elected officials (I think there are like 3 states where they're appointed instead, but Massachusetts isn't one of them). So at least if one fouls up badly enough there's the possibility of getting booted out. I'd think "looked the other way for hundreds of cases of child molestation by pedophile priests" would look pretty damning in an opponent's campaign ads.

Part of the reason they got away with this so long is how predominantly Catholic Boston is.  We saw this every time powerful players approached the reporters not to pursue this. The Catholic vote mattered so an opponent's campaign can accuse the DA of ignoring cases of child molestation but the DA could accuse that opponent of declaring war on the Catholic Church.

[andromeda331]

On 1/26/2020 at 11:32 AM, Sharpie66 said:

I am rewatching this on cable right now for the umpteenth time. Something just occurred to me when watching the opening prologue of Geoghan in the police station—it’s the entire movie in microcosm, showing the complicity of every institution that is shown to be culpable by the end of the film. It’s the Church, law enforcement, the lawyers, and even the press (the only newspaper who was even sniffing around was from a small press that got distracted easily, and none of the majors were anywhere to be found). I had always thought it was just to show the length of time Geoghan was molesting, but it does so much more. A very well-deserved Oscar for writing!

That's exactly how so many get away with molesting and raping so many people. Priests, Michael Jackson, Weinstein, Nassar, Epstein and God only knows how many more. There are so many institutions/people willing to help them get away with it. While votes and other reasons probably are part of it. I really think the truth is they didn't care. So many people did know and did nothing. To keep dropping charges and sending the same priests home no matter how many times they were caught? To keep sending home one abused child after another?