“Good Night, and Good Luck”   by Jason Callan

A government using fear, intimidation, domestic spying, torture, blacklisting, media spin, and no I am not talking about George W. Bush, but as they say history is doomed to repeat itself.  Good Night and Good Luck, written and directed by George Clooney (of Return of the Killer Tomatoes and Facts of Life fame) is the story of renowned journalist Edward R. Morrow (David Strathairn) and his attempt to bring down feisty Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy whose “Red Scare” exploited our fear of communism enabling him to blacklist celebrities, shut down media figures, and take out anyone who disagreed with his politics.  Oh so familiar…

The film is shot in black and white, emulating a film noir style.  Other than a few interludes, there is no music or backing tracks.  This causes this tidy little 90 minute film to feel like about three hours.  Good Night features an ensemble cast of credible Hollywood performers such as the aforementioned Clooney, Robert Downey Jr. (the Kieth Richards of 80’s era actors gone wild), Patricia Clarkson, Jeff Daniels and others that make little impact on this film.  Murrow and McCarthy are the story, everything else just feels tacked on.  Whether it was the pointless cover-up of the Downing/Clarkson marriage, Clooney’s forgettable performance as Fred Friendly (is it me or does that sound like a porn name) or Jeff Daniels not being an ass, the side characters added little to the plot. 

The brilliance within this film lies with Strathairn whose performance should earn him the gold statue in March.  His portrayal of Morrow is spot on delivering the occasionally preachy but always relevant Morrow rants as an almost mirror image impersonation.  The beauty for me was the use of all of McCarthy’s archived footage, speeches, and CBS interviews so you could see this was not propaganda, merely the facts.  Clooney has reinvented himself as a liberal figure without Bono’s savvy, and many conservative wags will call this a liberal Hollywood propaganda piece (and most of them will have this opinion without ever seeing the movie – see Fahrenheit 9/11), but this is simply a re-telling of a very dark time in our country’s history where personal liberties were being taken away and rights suspended in the name of fighting an enemy that was really more of an idea than an entity (can you say war on terror, I knew you could).

Hopefully people will come away with some critical thoughts about our current plight in the USA here in the 21^st century, but at the end of the day Clooney should forget about Best Picture for this one.  It also hardly seems fair to give a best screenplay award to a film that prominently features archival footage and retelling of speeches written by others.  Clooney pulled of a hat trick, but should be prepared to come away from Oscar empty handed.  It’s going to be a long night George, Good Luck!