Questionable journalism and problematic civil service collide in “Run This Town,” writer-director Ricky Tollman’s dramatization of former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s final year in office.
Ben Platt plays a milquetoast stand-in for the actual journalists who exposed Ford’s transgressions in a film that collects too many characters and too few clear ideas on how to treat — or connect — the concentric circles around misbehaving politicians, their protectors or enablers, and members of the would-be media trying to do their job in an increasingly inhospitable economic climate.
Platt plays Bram Shriver, a recent college graduate and award-winning student journalist who lands an entry-level job at The Record, a print and online publication in Toronto.