Flawless

Rating: 8/10 (7 February 2006)

Good Night, and Good Luck is a singularly gripping, powerful movie about the epic battle between a blustery, Red-obsessed senator and a resolved veteran newsman. Photographed in stark black and white and infused with a real 1950s feel, George Clooney's sharp homage to one of the greatest journalists America's ever known is utterly captivating and discomfiting.
Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) was one of the biggest stars in CBS News as the host of "Person to Person" and "See It Now." When he gets wind of a soldier who's been fired from the Air Force for a tenuous Communist connection, Murrow springs into action, choosing to use Senator Joseph P. McCarthy's own words and actions against him, rather than attacking the man.
What Murrow did was nothing short of astonishing. This was the mid-1950s. The press genuflected to royalty (i.e., politicos) much more than exercised genuine critical analysis of it. What's more, McCarthy's fellow senators did little to prevent the man from running roughshod over the rights of those suspecting of being "card-carrying Communists." With no press to question him and no colleagues to rein him in, McCarthy had carte blanche to root out the evil-doin' Reds from all facets of American life.
The stand that Murrow took - putting the reputations of himself, producer Fred Friendly (Clooney), and the CBS network on the line - took an incalculable amount of courage. One misstep by Murrow and his team, and his career would be over. (As it turned out, his undoing of McCarthy was also his own undoing, but that was less his fault than the fault of CBS chief William Paley.) More than fifty years have passed since Murrow won by decision over McCarthy (the senator was censured by his colleagues, which allowed him to remain in the Senate but severely diminished his influence), but the events that take place in this film resonate deeply today. Indeed, it is not unimaginable to see a politician like MCCarthy run amok in a avaricious grab for power and prestige. The passage of time, however, allows us to reflect perhaps a bit more objectively, to examine the fight for the civil rights of every man, woman, and child in the United States. How far have we come in the ensuing half-century? Who are the Murrows of today? Strathairn is nothing short of remarkable. He's not an especially large man, but he has such gravitas in this film that he seems to fill the screen even when he's merely sitting in the background. He is a man of many faces and expressions, and every one of them seems to ring perfectly true. Strathairn has knocked around Hollywood for more than a quarter century, earning scores of accolades from his peers and the media, but he's never been a leading man in a such a widely praised film. Indeed, he's the kind of actor who disappears into roles, who is a superb character actor, adding color and depth to every role he touches. He's been nominated for an Academy award at this writing, and he stands a good chance at bringing home the statuette. It's long overdue.
Strathairn is ably supported by a well-picked cast, including Robert Downey Jr. in his fortieth comeback, Frank Langella as Paley, and Clooney as producer Friendly. Even more beneficial, though, is the look and feel of the movie, and the near-flawless direction by Clooney. Clooney wisely stuck to the main tet-a-tet between Murrow and McCarthy, rather than building up Murrow as a character first; indeed, there's little else in the movie besides the row with McCarthy. For one thing, we learn virtually nothing about the personal lives of Friendly and Murrow. And that omission works very well within the structure of this film.
Good Night, and Good Luck is a mesmerizing glimpse at how the power of the press can be used to uphold the rights of man, and a chilling snapshot at what can happen if ego and authority go unchecked.