10 Best Michael Keaton Performances
8. Henry Hackett
The Paper was Ron Howard's attempt to make one of the old style newspaper films of the '30s and '40s, updated for the then modern day. He choose to write about a tabloid instead of a broadsheet, finding himself fascinated by the amount of wheeling and dealing that went on behind the scenes.
For Henry Hackett, the reporter that Keaton plays, he wanted someone who lived for the thrill of the story yet believed passionately in the truth. Hackett's arc in the film depicts him learning to balance becoming a father, with searching for the truth, while also coming to terms with his manager making cuts that may very well lose him his job.
While The Paper is not as serious a film as his later film Spotlight, this is an excellent example of high-energy journalism, kept a shade away from drama with comedic elements, told in a somewhat taught 112 minutes.
Many of the characters in the film are based on real people. Even the titular paper itself, the New York Sun, borrows its name from a then-defunct paper (there is subsequently a new edition of the New York Sun). There are allusions to the New York Times and the Washington Post as well, with many nods to famous news stories through the years.
This is one for the tabloid junkies and the casual fans.