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If "Spotlight" simply delivered a heroic depiction of working journalists, fighting the good fight against long odds, it would be a great movie.

It also would be a great movie if all it did was detail the levels of official deceit and cover-up that allowed hundreds of Catholic priests in the Boston archdiocese to sexually abuse children over decades. Or if it merely showed how the chumminess of various Boston institutions — the courts, the church, even the newspaper that ultimately exposed the abuse — downplayed the severity of the problem.

The fact that director Tom McCarthy and his co-writer, Josh Singer, do all these things at once, while still telling a rattling good yarn — the sort of war story old-school newspaperpeople tell cub reporters over scotch after deadline — makes it one of the year's best movies.

"Spotlight" gets its title from The Boston Globe's team of investigative reporters, called Spotlight. In the summer of 2001, the Spotlight team, led by editor Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton), had just finished a major project and was looking around for the next one. At the same time, the Globe had a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), relocated from the Miami Herald and tasked with examining the paper's shrinking bottom line.

In an early meeting, Baron tells Robinson and the Globe's managing editor, Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery), he is surprised to learn the court records are sealed in a case of a priest accused of sexually abusing children. He urges Robinson to deploy the Spotlight team to follow the story and see where it leads.

Robinson's reporters — Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d'Arcy James) — start digging, and they find evidence of a systemwide problem. Soon the numbers rise from one priest to 13 to 70.

As the Spotlight team members build their story, layer by layer, Baron quietly challenges them to go further. It's not enough to document priests who committed abuse, Baron tells them. To trigger any meaningful change, Baron says, they must find evidence that Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) and his administration worked to cover up the assaults.

McCarthy ("The Visitor," "Win Win") and Singer manage to make the grind of day-to-day newspaper work — from Rezendes hunting for documents to Pfeiffer gingerly interviewing victims — look absorbing. (Journalists know the work is exciting, but we sometimes have a hard time explaining it to our spouses.) The movie also references the financial assaults on the industry in 2001 and 2002, with mentions of layoffs, decreased classified-ad revenue and competition from the Internet. (In one sly moment, the parking lot behind the Globe building is overshadowed by a billboard for AOL.)

The movie shows the web of influence within Boston and how all the power brokers are linked. In one scene, Robinson encounters a fixer for Cardinal Law (played by Paul Guilfoyle) while negotiating for information about a priest who taught at Boston College High, the Catholic school Robinson attended — which happens to sit across the street from the Globe's offices.

Keaton is a standout in the stellar ensemble, showing Robinson doggedly pursuing the story while also being introspective when it becomes clear the Globe could have broken it years earlier. Ruffalo, McAdams and James get the details of journalists' lives down perfectly and show the strain the story puts on their personal lives. And Schreiber grounds the movie, showing Baron as a newsroom Jedi, an outsider who sees what the homegrown Bostonians missed.

The other great thing about "Spotlight" is that it never shouts out its message. McCarthy (whose finest moment as an actor might have been as a reporter on "The Wire") employs the secret every good reporter knows: Let the facts speak for themselves, and they will make your story worth the audience's time.

Twitter: @moviecricket —

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'Spotlight'

The grinding work of Boston Globe reporters to expose the Catholic church's sex-abuse scandal makes for a riveting, vital drama.

Where • Theaters everywhere.

When • Opens today.

Rating • R for some language including sexual references.

Running time • 128 minutes.