Award-winning socio-political drama...

Rating: 8/10 (12 February 2008)

...probably deserved a few of the prizes it didn't win as well, but remains a fine piece of work nonetheless. Actor/director/co-writer George "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" Clooney guides his perfectly cast lead, David "Return of the Secaucus Seven" Strathairn, to a fully realized portrayal of one of America's great journalist/commentators, and brings the story of CBS-TV's pivotal struggle to weather the political tide of McCarthyism to vivid b & w life. Immaculately shot by Robert "There Will Be Blood" Elswit, and edited by Stephen "Babel" Mirrione, with superb production design by James D. "300" Bissell, and art direction by Christa "The Ring Two" Munro, "Good Night, and Good Luck" plunks its audience smack in the middle of Cold War paranoia and the ever present struggle between freedom and oppression, a struggle that unsurprisingly seems all too familiar more than half century after the fact. Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov's cautionary screenplay gives the media, the government, and corporate business their biggest collective poke in the eye since "Network" pointed out the Emperor's lack of clothing in 1976. Required viewing for anyone interested in the free expression of ideas, as well as the dangers of corporate media and the intrusions of government upon individual rights.