inside baseball

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2016)

It's 1953. CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) leads an on-air fight against Senator Joseph McCarthy and his crusade to uncover communists and other unamerican activities. The film follows the CBS news team which includes producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney), reporter Joseph Wershba (Robert Downey Jr.), wife fellow reporter Shirley Wershba (Patricia Clarkson), and others.
George Clooney is also the writer and director. He decided to strip this of its Hollywood flash by making it black and white, and keeping the sound design to a minimum. It's a smoke-filled representation of the behind the scenes work in the newsroom. It doesn't have the tension for me. It's inside-baseball for the journalist crowd. Clooney can't escape being Clooney and it's hard to see these characters as flesh and blood. The story could have better tension if McCarthy has an actor playing the group's foil. The news footage serves an useful historical reference but it needs a big performance to deliver the intense drama.