MovieChat Forums > State of Play (2009) Discussion > The ending wasn't clear...SPOILERS

The ending wasn't clear...SPOILERS

posted 9 years ago by lebellue
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I really liked the movie. I'm hoping that the BBC mini-series is more clear at the end, but if it's not I won't be too disappointed....

The end could be interpreted several ways...I don't want to spend too much time going into detail but here are a few notes..

When Bingham goes to the government building...He couldn't have been after Cal specifically. He doesn't even know that he is there. Anyway what would be the purpose of killing Cal. Others had the story as well...But maybe Bingham didn't know that yet. Maybe all he knew for sure is that Cal had seen him and was onto him. But Cal had already gone to the police...

It seems to me that Bingham took it upon himself in his insane state to decide to go to the govt building and wait for the govt officials that are in Point Corp (especially Fergus) and gun them down when they got to work in the morning. He was probably on a suicide mission as well and if he hadn't been shot (by the police that happened to be there) he would have decidedly committed suicide after he shot as many people as he could. Clearing any possibility of him becoming imprisoned and forced to talk. He had dressed in his military garb after all, and usually that signifies getting dressed up for a suicide mission in a case like this. Other times we had seen him he was dressed as a civilian.

As far as Bingham's phone call at the end...
(1) We don't even know for sure that it was Stephen!
(2) Whoever he had called had no time to respond at all. His message was short and fast. Then he hung up.
(3) Maybe he left a message, although that seems weird that he would do that (security reasons), but he was insane.

Other interpretations I have read on this board do not make any sense to me. I'm looking forward to watching the BBC series.

But who knows, maybe Stephen was a psychopath who was super jealous of Cal sleeping with his wife (kill him, especially since he knows everything!), wanted his girlfriend dead (she's Point Corp! Kill her!), had no real emotions and could easily fake tears..... If I was his wife I would watch my back....NOT!

[–] august-eighty 9 years ago

I freeze framed the part at the end when Cafferty is writing the final article. On the screen is says:

"When police went to arrest Bingham at his Northern Virginia apartment last night, he was found dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A rifle was next to his body."

So it seems that there is some big discrepancies within the film itself. I'm guessing they initial shot one ending, which is the one you see in the article (suicide) and then later went back and reshot the ending with him confronting Cafferty and being gunned down by police.

If that's the case, I wouldn't be surprised if they made other changes to the script throughout shooting, and possibly other reshoots, which caused some inconsistencies in the story. It seems, at least with Bigham's character, they weren't sure how to handle ending his character. Which means his motivations to start with may have been a little hazy and revised in editing / reshoots.

Also surprised that the article he's writing says:

"Collins admitted the he had directed his former associate to follow Baker after learning that she was secretly on the payroll of military contractor PointCorp."

This is also false - Collins never said this. He specifically said he had her followed on suspicion...not that he knew money was being exchanged. So again, the article Caffery's writing seems to imply a different version of the script that we never saw.

[–] Aswena 9 years ago

Collins never said this. He specifically said he had her followed on suspicion...not that he knew money was being exchanged. So again, the article Caffery's writing seems to imply a different version of the script that we never saw.

Collins knew about the money, he told his wife about the 26,000 monthly dollars paid to Sonia
Cal is aware of this because Anne Collins mentionned this figure to him, whereas she was not suposed to know this