It Can't Happen Here: GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK

I have always thought that the McCarthy hearings would make a for a great movie. Unfortunately, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK is not that movie. It's barely even a movie. The George Clooney directed film follows Edward R. Murrow as he decides to take on Senator Joe McCarthy with his weekly investigative news program. And that's basically the entire movie. Clooney relies on a lot of original source material (McCarthy only appears in actual footage from the program) to let the audience experience the story as the original television audience might have. It is an intersting tactic, but it hardly makes for entertaining cinema. There are giant chunks of the film that were essentially watching the original show and I couldn't help but think if I was watching the History Channel I might actually be able to just watch the original show. David Straitharn turns in a spotless portrayal of Murrow, what there is to the character. Clooney never bothers to let us inside the main character, we know nothing about him other than his show. Does he have a wife? Is he conflicted about taking on a senator? Is he a nice guy? We never know. And the only conflict in the film, McCarthy, doesn't actually appear in the film as a character. So what Clooney gives us is a pretty one sided account of a tv newsman who pursues a story and and puts it on. Yeah, that's exciting. Not to mention, historically, Murrow was not all that responsible for the end of McCarthy's reign. This is not Woodward and Bernstein taking down Nixon. Many people had already turned on McCarthy and began speaking out, in the Senate itself in fact. Murrow was just the first to put it on prime time. The movie looks great, filmed in black and white. The story itself is black and white too, and clocking in at 90 minutes, Clooney gives us no room for thought or investigation, i.e. why did people follow McCarthy, how did TV perpetuate him, etc. Not to mention all the time given over to rather bland jazz music performed in the CBS studio - a glaring inacuracy if there ever was one - the battle over live vs. recorded music had occured years earlier over the radio waves. So yeah, the movie is a little dull, and little heavy-handed. Not to say that McCarthy was doing a good thing, but if you are going to make such an overt comparison to the PATRIOT ACT, I would prefer if it was a little more subtle and less speechafying. GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK is getting a lot of Oscar buzz, which I hope is more for the content than the quality of the film. This is Clooney's second film, the first CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND was horribly flawed in its tone, so I can't but help think maybe George ought to stick to acting and producing.

GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK is recommended to history fans, people who want to see actors smoke like a case of cigarrettes over the course of the film, anyone who sided their house with alcoa aluminum, and well, I can't think of anyone else. Rick's Rating: C -