DVD: The Ides of March (15)

This perfectly competent, if rather slight, political drama is enlivened by Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the competing spin doctors plotting to get their Democrat candidate elected during the Primary campaign.

The main players, however, in this downbeat, cynical tale are George Clooney's super-smooth Governor Mike Morris and Ryan Gosling's smart, idealistic press aide, Stephen Myers, who becomes intimately involved with a young intern (Evan Rachel Wood). The pacing is refreshingly slow and the script is crisp, but it lacks enough emotional punch and it criminally wastes the talents of Marisa Tomei, who plays a sharp-tongued hack.