Excellent

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2009)

Based on a non-fiction book by one Richard Goodwin, a former US Congress investigator who played a key role in unraveling the American TV quiz show scandals of the late 1950s. An exquisite and beautiful film.
The time is the fifties, the place America : the Soviets have just launched their Sputnik, the first man-made object to enter space, heralding the US-Soviet space race and heightening Cold War tensions ; Dwight Eisenhower is in his second term as US President ; and two in every three households has a TV set. To ensure greater viewership, the producers of certain TV quiz shows secretly provided the quiz contestants with questions and answers beforehand. This virtually guaranteed the shows' popularity, because the viewers "just wanted to see the money", as one character says.
Ralph Fiennes as Charles Van Doren plays another of his idealistic yet morally ambiguous characters, who is sucked into the morass against his will by the producers' guile, and also by his own need for fame and attention. And so Van Doren comes to make his own little Faustian pact with the Devil. Fiennes is one of those rare actors, like Al Pacino or Michael Douglas, who simply exude charisma, and whom it is always a delight to watch no matter what they're doing. And yet it is John Turturro who steals the thunder right from under Fiennes' nose. If you really want to understand the phrase "disappear into a character", just watch Turturro in this film. In his voice, his walk, his physiognomy and right down to the movement of his eyes, he becomes Herb Stempel, the geeky and disgruntled contestant whose antics lead to the whole controversy. Every scene he's in, no matter how serious, threatens to become uproariously funny.
Robert Redford as director proves to be a consummate storyteller, fully self-possessed and in control of the medium. The story is told as part drama, part history lesson and part comedy. The script is so interesting that even though one knows the outcome, its a lot of fun watching it happen. Every line of dialog is perfect, every scene is necessary no more no less. The whole film is peppered with literary and scholastic references, from Shakespeare and Keats to more obscure figures like Proudhon. The Shakespearean motifs are especially pronounced, from the verse game played by Charles' family, to the comparison of Charles Van Doren to Hamlet.
This is yet another film that enough people haven't seen, or have simply forgotten. One of the very best films I've seen in some time.