A good civics lesson, but only a fair movie

Rating: Null/10 (7 October 2005)

I have a feeling most of the critics of "Good Night and Good Luck" are going to come from the political right --those who think it is part of the long liberal tradition of bashing Joe McCarthy, who is dead and gone and cannot defend himself. I take a slightly different stance. I'm somewhat critical of the movie, and I think McCarthy deserved everything he got in life and more, much more. My problem is not with the movie's politics, but with its film-making.
First, let's mention the good stuff. George Clooney does a solid job as director, keeping the pace swift, the performances universally good and ringing everything he can ring out of the camera and the editing equipment. He makes lots of use of quick cuts and dramatic camera angles, all of which flatter the players and heighten the tension.
And Clooney does an excellent job as actor. I have to admit I was skeptical when I heard he was playing Fred Friendly, but he pulls the part off and then some and you are able to forget he is a handsome Hollywood leading man and accept him as a behind the scenes administrator.
Full marks, too, to the ensemble cast including Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey Junior and Jeff Daniels, and especially to Frank Langella, who pulls off his "William Paley" role with ease.
What of David Strathairn in the pivotal role as Edward R. Murrow? I have long been a Strathairn fan (especially in all those John Sayles movies) and think he gives it everything he's got. But he finds himself in the tough position of playing an historic character who is too fresh in our minds. He has neither the physical presence nor the timber of voice of Murrow and I kept flashing back on the real life CBS icon, which distracted from me paying attention to the actor up there on the screen. Whether those not overly familiar with the real life Murrow will face this problem or not, I don't know.
But it is those not so familiar with Murrow and this particular chapter of American history who I feel were short changed the most. And that was because of a thin script, the place where George Clooney, co-screenwriter, fell down.
The problem for me is that the movie failed to establish the era and the stakes involved in this battle of wills in the early days of television. The film does have a brief opening prologue, which quickly crawls up the screen as it tells about the influence McCarthy was having and the fear he struck in people's hearts.
But that's sort of like saying Attila the Hun was a rowdy house guest. What the film needed to do was to show the impact red baiting had on America from the end of WWII until the mid-50s. It needed to talk about the HUAC hearings, the Hollywood black list, the government purges, the spy trials, the fear of the bomb, the raging debate over "who lost China," the suicide in '49 of former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, all these things created a climate of fear which had a strong impact on the nation, and which led to the rise of McCarthyism.
While a movie is NOT a history lesson, this is a movie about history being made and the audience, especially those not around when this was all going on, needs to understand the stakes that were involved here. There was even fear in the 50s that McCarthy was maneuvering himself into a position where he'd either have to be given a cabinet post or Eisenhower would have to put him on the GOP ticket in 1956. Luckily, Ike, no matter how much he disliked Nixon, had even greater disdain for McCarthy, who he looked upon as something of a dangerous demagogue, if not a cheap thug.
All these things could be told, either in fast paced news clips or newspaper headlines of the day at the beginning of the film, or mixed in later, anything to raise the stakes in this film.
What could have also been used was drawing a contrast between Murrow's celebrated service as a war correspondent in London, and "Tailgunner Joe's" self proclaimed heroics on bombing missions.
Some or even any of this might have added drama to the story, as would a few words about how McCarthy came to be censored by the Senate, what happened to him and to the perpetually cigarette smoking Ed Murrow.
Whether or not George Clooney had the budget to add another ten minutes to the film, I don't know. But those ten minutes could have lifted a good film into the realm of greatness. As it is, the film fails to live up to the importance of the events it is depicting.