Redford's Fiendishly Entertaining Movie About Entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (17 March 2009)

Robert Redford reminded everyone what a good director he could be with this slick and supremely entertaining film about the quiz show scandals in the early days of television.
The subject seems at first glance like rather feeble material for good drama -- after all, it all happened so long ago and it was just a silly T.V. game show we're talking about here. But Redford digs into something deeper, namely the power television (or any medium, for that matter) has over its audience and the responsibility of that audience to play an active role in processing the information that medium is feeding to it.
With stellar performances from Ralph Fiennes, Rob Morrow, Paul Scofield and, yes, even John Turturro, an actor I generally resist.
Grade: A