A very good movie

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2006)

This movie engaged me from beginning to end for several different reasons. One was the overall style- like everything was real. Clooney films everything as if it were real footage; but not necessarily footage that people want to see- footage people need to see. There is a certain urgency in everything- the way the camera moves, the way it focuses on one person at a time, the manner in which it changes focus. From what I have read about the making of this movie, Clooney intended to draw parallels to our time now, but I felt more of a documentary sense in this film. It does not feel like an allegory to this age, but a chronicle of that one.
Another thing was the acting. Well, actually, there is no real acting in this movie, only being. David Strathairn is Edward Murrow. Frank Langella is Bill Paley. Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson are the Wershbas. John McCarthy is...oh, wait. Even George Clooney isn't George Clooney in this movie. He does not steal the spotlight at all and cedes everything over to Strathairn and the storyline.
The dialog is wonderful too. This is a very quotable movie, but even beyond that, the words coming out of these people's mouths are made real. Clooney has his actors speak over each other and draws attention to the important lines by having the dialog trickle away until there is only one person speaking and then repeats the process all over again- which is pretty much how real conversations take place. However, this also makes it hard to follow the plot at times and it takes a good deal of concentration in some parts to keep up.
This movie's great accomplishment is creating a real setting and atmosphere and making something that was a reality then in real life into a reality now on film.