George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck (3.5/4 stars)

The first George Clooney-directed film I got to see was the underscreened "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind". George did a decent job on that film, and the influence of his budd Steven Soderbergh showed in the film's style. In his current effort, Good Night, and Good Luck, George takes off on a completely different tangent. While some elements of the film still retain the gritty Soderberghian style, he elects to use a docudrama slant. He even goes to the extent of filming in black and white.

It's a great call, and it works extremely well.

In this telling of the events surrounding television journalist Ed Murrow's media battle with US Senator Joe McCarthy in the dark days of the Communist witchhunt, Clooney's choice of using stock footage of the real McCarthy rather than casting an actor is a gutsy call. Writing the screenplay around these snippets of historical footage, David Straithairn's Murrow is given the real thing to play against. It enhances the realism of the film and sucks you into the struggle.

Speaking of Straithairn, the role is essayed as a hardboiled, steadfast freedom-loving American. It's not a HUGE role, as the screenplay sticks completely to the story of the McCarthy conflict and does not touch at all on Murrow. This deprives the viewer from being able to invest in Ed as a person since we are not presented much beyond the straightlaced, stonefaced television journalist. Even when a close friend and associate dies, we are not given a window into how Murrow copes with the loss, or even the pressures of his job. He comes across as larger than life. This is the main weakness of the film.

Good Night, and Good Luck comes in with a running time of less than two hours. It can be argued that they might have invested some time in showing us more about Murrow. Ultimately, Cloney decided that the film is about the conflict, and is not about the character. Too bad, because putting in 20 minutes more of character backstory for Murrow would have, to my mind, made the film better.

Bottom Line: Overall, Good Night, and Good Luck is an excellent film and well worth the time. This is my dark horse for the 2005 Best Film Academy Award.