Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Release: Affairs of State

Digital Release Date: Aug. 14, 2018, Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Aug. 14, 2018
Price: DVD $13.90, Blu-ray $15.99
Studio: Lionsgate

Love, lust and a healthy dollop of political scandal are the ingredients in the thriller Affairs of State, an Ides of March-ish kind of mash-up of House of Cards and The Graduate.

David Corenswet gets political in Affairs of State

In his quest for power, D.C. aide Michael Lawson (David Corenswet) will do anything to take part in Senator Baines’s (David James Elliott, TV’s JAG) White House campaign, including blackmailing Baines’s shady advisor (Adrian Grenier, TV’s Entourage) and sleeping with the candidate’s wife (Mimi Rogers, Hope Springs). But when he gets involved with the senator’s alluring daughter, Lawson (Grace Victoria Cox) learns his dangerous game could have a deadly payoff.

Written by Tom Cudworth and directed by Eric Bross, the film, which received a limited theatrical rollout earlier this summer, also features Thora Birch (American Beauty), who we’ve seen too little of in recent years.

It’s actually the presence of the Birch and the other talented ladies of the supporting cast that make this one click. Grace Victoria Cox, late of Under the Dome, is all displays the appropriate  co-ed sizzle as State’s hormonal Senator’s daughter (a sort of non-politicized variation on Evan Rachel Wood’s character in Ides of March) And the always-game Mimi Rogers brings the milf appeal in her turn as an equally aroused political wife (who also digs the opportunity to display some power role-playing).

The Blu-ray, DVD and Digital editions of the film include a director/producer commentary track and a collection deleted scenes which woudn’t have added much color to the story and so were right to be have been excised.