This film investigates the effects of dishonesty, featuring the thriving and prestigious publication New Republic, whose associate editor, a fresh-faced, intellectual 25 year old, contributes to his own undoing by fabricating stories.

The unveiling of this fraud occupies the whole film, as sources of Stephen Glass' fantastical stories are, one by one, exposed as false.

How he wasn't found out earlier is a mystery to me but given the film is based on actual events, its truth was hardly in question.

Perhaps the problem lay in the fact I completely failed to identify with the geeky, childlike central character Stephen Glass, played by Hayden Christensen.

Even at the end, when tears run down his cheeks as he is dismissed from the workplace, I failed to find it in myself to feel sorry for him.

Action lovers will become impatient with this slow-moving and colourless film and a lack of any detailed sub-plot and an incomplete ending would frustrate the most conscientious viewer.

I therefore felt the film would hold value only for journalism teachers as a useful learning aid for their students.

CS