Much Ado About ... Something

Rating: Null/10 (11 October 2011)

Quiz Show is a great movie. It is part morality tale and part character study, but most importantly, it is a showcase of outstanding performances by a top-notch cast.
It is based on a true story, as told in a book written by Richard Goodwin, a congressional committee investigator who looked into allegations that a television quiz show, 21, was rigged. Rob Morrow plays Goodwin and delivers his best performance ever. He is not a leading man. But he is thoroughly believable as a gadfly with subpoena power.
John Turturro and Ralph Fiennes are equally good as Herb Stempel and Charles Van Doren, respectively. Stempel is a long-running 21 champ who is booted off the show because viewer ratings are sagging. Van Doren, the heir apparent of one of America's preeminent intellectual families, is picked as his replacement. Herb is bitter and goes public with his allegations that the show is fixed. Enter Goodwin and his subpoenas.
The supporting cast is excellent as well. David Paymer and Hank Azaria are the show's producers, Dan Enright and Albert Freedman, who first lie and try to cover up the scam. But they are finally forced to tell the truth. Which leads to an interesting question. Why does anyone care if a TV game show is fixed? It's just entertainment, and there is apparently no law forbidding television from making fools out of the American public.
Really.
"We're not exactly hardened criminals here," Freedman says. "We're in show business."
All I can say is Quiz Show makes me care, and that I want the lie to be exposed. But I suspect a viewer's position on that question says more about the viewer than the movie.
Also very good in much smaller roles are Johann Carlo and Mira Sorvino as the wives of Stempel and Goodwin, and represent just as much a contrast. Tobey Stempel is a grating nag who seldom has a kind word to say to her husband. In contrast, Sandra Goodwin is clearly a full partner with her husband who provides intellectual and moral support. It may be a little-sharp-edged at times. But it is support nonetheless.
Robert Redford as an actor has always been something of an enigma to me. There always seems to be a distance between him and the audience. But somehow it works, and I am a fan of many of his movies - some of which I think are truly great, like Three Days of the Condor and Jeremiah Johnson.
But as a director, Redford is much easier to understand. There is no distance between viewers and the movie. Viewers are right there with the characters on the screen. And he consistently finds top performances from his actors.
Who knows? Maybe Redford is a genius.
Either way, Quiz Show is a great movie.