A Personal Favorite

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2001)

This film gained some critical and popular attention when it was released, but nearly not enough, in my opinion. It is preachy, to be sure -- but pedantry isn't necessarily a bad thing, provided the filmmaker has something worthwhile to preach about, and carries it off with commitment and insight.
Robert Redford did have something to bring to our attention in this film, and it was not as many have suggested, the corruption of TV executives. It was also not fundamentally about dishonesty or fraud. The film's real purpose was to mark that place in time in American culture when TV became more important then reality, when it began to stand in for many of our higher values.
Watch the film with this idea in mind, and it will take on a great deal more depth. Observe the relationship between Charlie Van Doren and his father -- the two standing ultimately on different sides of the cultural divide that was opening in American at that time. The side onto which Charlie Van Doren stepped, seduced by money and easy fame, is the one on which we live on today. Our culture was not always thus, is Redford's subtle message -- and here is when it changed. Bravo.
Redford is also to be commended for the performances he drew from his cast. The stand-outs are obvious, but what's important overall is Redford's attention to character development and realism. This is something the current crop of hot-shot directors (Soderburg, Cameron, Spielberg, Scott, to name but a few) cannot seem to manage, so instead they give us visual spectacle, shallow characters and few ideas. Perhaps it takes a senior member of the acting community rescue us from these vapid directors.
"Quiz Show" is one of the few movies of recent years to be a film about something important, and it was executed with an unusual degree of wit, style and attention to detail. This film will always reside near the top of my personal favorites list. I rate it nine out of ten.