Splendid Performance by Strathairn

Rating: 9/10 (22 November 2005)

David Strathairn not only nails the Murrow mannerisms, even holding his cigarettes at the very angle the consummate newsman employed, but he also splendidly captures in "Good Night and Good Luck" Murrow's peculiar speech patterns. Brilliant use is made, moreover, of film footage of the "Junior Senator From Wisconsin" himself at his most overbearing. What the movie does brilliantly, too, is to evoke the aura of '50s television, and for that, as well as the McCarthy footage,kudos should go to George Clooney for his direction and writing. The movie also brings home the fact that even a talent as prominent as Edward R. Murrow had to temporize his standards by hosting that piece of unfortunate Sunday night fluff remembered as "Person to Person." Frank Langella, playing CBS president William Paley, does an excellent job of showing how one in his position was whipsawed by the competing demands of a fiercely independent news department and those of a sponsor, Alcoa, which in turn responded to the repressive climate of the times.
What prevents me from recommending a "10" rating is the film's failure to evoke--at least in my wife and myself, who both remember vividly the "See It Now" Cassius program and the Army-McCarthy hearings--a strong emotional response. Part of that failure may be attributed to our belief that the film peaked too early: we think it should have ended with the "See It Now" episode at issue or with McCarthy's censure by the United States Senate.
"Good Night and Good Luck" nonetheless remains a film well worth one's time.