Do it again, George

Rating: 8/10 (17 October 2005)

Those who did not live through the age will miss the terror of living with half the world under the gun of communism, France and Italy and Greece nearly committing democratic suicide by electing communist governments, of atomic weapons built to American specifications pointed at our cities, of survival kits in the closet in case the big ones were launched, of signing loyalty oaths just to wash dishes in a university dining hall. It was that terror that McCarthy tried to ride to power. Clooney misses the public hysteria and so leaves his best material on the floor. Instead we get a well-reenacted but thin outline of the domestic battle between Unflinching Murrow, Fumbling McCarthy and the less than heroic bit players. It is not that I did not like this movie, it is that I ached for something more powerful and educational.