I'm going to quiz you about the movie

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2012)

Based on a true story, Robert Redford's 1994 film Quiz Show deals with the socio-political and moral issues of cheating, rigging, and lying. The movie begins in 1958; the show '21' is on the top of its ratings. Their current champ, Herbert Stempel (John Turturro) seems to have great memory and a broad range of knowledge on many topics. John Turturro has always been an underrated actor, and his role as Stempbel is one of his best roles. He's able to make the audience sweat it out and think that he is really playing the game straight. He's also a pudgy loudmouth with a grating aspergery weirdness personality. We, the audience will never know who he is. The show's producers created the image of a nebbishy, awkward square in order to first make home audiences sympathize with him, and then root against him. So John Turturro is able to make him look like a quiet nerd, while also a loudmouth. The producers got tired of him, and wanted somebody more cleared cut, handsome, and somebody the audience can appeal to. What the audience doesn't know is that the show is rigged and the winners are fed the answers. Herbert is encouraged to take a dive and allow Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a handsome and charming college professor, to become the show's new champion. Ralph gives the character, the American aristocrat feel to him. Like Stempel, we don't know truly how Charles Van Doren acted. Ralph is able to show Charles Van Doren bad acting with furrowed brow agonizing, while also showing what could have been Van Doren real self. Congressional investigator Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow) can see through the lies and began to snoop to takes him to Stempel, who claims the show's producers ordered him to lose to Doren. Morrow is emotionally drawn to Van Doren, as he invites Morrow to many of his social circle of Ivy League WASPs. He still wants to bring the TV industry and its corporate sponsors to its knees, but Doren is in danger of getting expose. He's torn between his newfound friendship with Doran and his quest for the truth. Director Robert Redford and writer Paul Attanasio paint a telling portrait of how the network heads and advertising men who manipulated the quiz shows were also able to manipulate the responsibility for the scandal away from themselves. It has a 'All the President's Men' to it with Morrow as the intrepid investigator, is a detective story full of familiar Watergate patterns: the late-night poring over lists of potential sources, the confrontations with tight-lipped witnesses at their front doors, the publicly inaccessible authority that needs toppling. However, the movie doesn't end with a clear answer. There is a sympathetic Hollywood spin on the real counterpart. In a film that takes exception to deception (or dramatic manipulation) in the name of entertainment, it's more than a little ironic that "Quiz Show"—as enjoyable as it is—pulls the same kind of wool over your eyes. The irony is that the producers were trying to create as much drama as possible for the audience. It mirrors the real life show. You never know what truly happen. Depending who you are, this might leave you with sour grapes in your mouth or a wonderful taste of perfect wine.