Good
Night, and Good Luck. (**1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
Edward R. Murrow, on of the most respected broadcast journalists
on the airwaves is seeing a great injustice play out right
in front of his eyes. Senator Joseph McCarthy has taken it
upon himself to search and destroy all communists living in
the United States. However, he’s bullying people, forcing
them to live in fear and charging too many innocent people.
The American public is afraid to speak their mind the way the
Constitution says they should be able to. Something must be
done to stop this travesty. Murrow is going to take on McCarthy,
even if it means sacrificing his own career.
Here we have actor George Clooney’s sophomore effort
as director and his first foray into writing a feature length
film (along with fellow actor Grant Heslov). This is a step-up
from “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” but the
jury is still out on his abilities. He knows how to accomplish
the visual side of the equation, but when it comes to integrating
that with the storytelling aspect of it all, he needs work.
It all seems like he’s trying too hard to impress people
so that he can be noticed and considered as a serious film
director. He has potential, but I don’t know if he truly
understands how to harvest it.
The biggest problem I had with the film is the script. It
moves way too fast. Plot points are banged out like a drum
beat. There’s no time to soak anything in, and as a result,
we’re left with an unsatisfying blur of this supposed
battle between two heavyweights. Unlike with “The Insider” I
didn’t see a real imminent threat to Murrow. They talked
a lot of talk and an envelope was pulled out, but that didn’t
translate into too much tension on the screen. The other newsroom
workers are given screentime, but its largely unneeded. Other
than a very loose connection in not being able to tell the
truth, I honestly can’t see any purpose in showing us
this secret marriage story. None of the other relationships
within the movie are fleshed out even though all our time is
spent at work.
They use archival footage of Senator McCarthy in order to
show how ridiculous and full of it he was. I wish they would
have done the same for Murrow to show the opposite. As good
as David Strathairn is as Murrow (we don’t see enough
of Ed off camera to call the performance great), I think it
would be better to see the actual man at work. Considering
the other failed elements of the picture, perhaps it would
be more productive and entertaining to toss away the fictionalization
of the story and tell a straight documentary. I’d much
rather see that.
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