We're old - we remember this time

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2005)

People who didn't live through the McCarthy era don't have any idea of how terrifying it was for honest Americans who firmly believed in the Constitution. It took the combined onslaught of Edward Murrow and Joseph Welch to bring that madman and his vile little henchmen to an end.
I was prepared to love this movie, simply because George Clooney was in it and because a lot of people were brave enough to make it. I didn't plan on being swept away.
I could write about how inaccurate much of it was historically, but that's of no matter here, because this is art - art reflecting life, which is what the best art does. It held up to us in a most palatable way the absolute corruption that is forever nibbling at the edges of our freedom. Joe McCarthy was not nearly as prominent as George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, but the harm he inflicted - and tried to inflict - was enormous, much like those murderous cretins in the White House today.
That's why this film matters so much. The writing, the acting, the glorious cinematography, all of it is terrific. But, more than all of that, it's a movie that teaches those who aren't familiar with what it was like back then to sit up and pay attention to the basic American truths that will never fail:
that your government lies to you, that you must always be prepared to defend yourself against your government, that you have the power to hold your government to account.
This is more than a brilliant movie - it is an essential movie.