Movie Review: Good Night, and Good Luck

I finally saw the movie Good Night, and Good Luck last night. The multiply Oscar nominated film (6 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director) tells the story of newsman Edward R. Murrow's coverage of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950's and how the news media helped bring the fool down.

For such a well reviewed film, I wish I could say I was surprised at how overrated it is, but I can't. Films like this are going to be received well, regardless of merit. (I will focus purely on the movie, not the political context of the film, which is the motivation for much of the praise.) The best summary of why it's overrated is simple. The film features a cast with several known actors, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson, David Straithairn, and George Clooney among them. Having watched the film, I can't tell you any of their character's names, save Straithairn who gets the lead role of Murrow. I can't even tell you what their characters did in relation to the story. They all work for CBS. Clooney is, I guess, a producer who hides in the shadows of the set to tap Murrow on the leg to give him cues. The rest? I really couldn't tell you.

As to the story itself, it's told in a by the book manner, perhaps consistent with Murrow's approach to journalism. But there's no real drama in it. As Steve Rhodes writes in his review, "In probably the year's most wildly overrated movie, director George Clooney takes an extremely exciting piece of history and sucks all of the life out of it. The movie is about as flat as the Pillsbury Doughboy after being run over by an 18-wheeler." McCarthy was a fool (and it fills my heart so much whenever I think he was a Senator from Wisconsin) so all CBS had to do was show footage of the guy putting his foot in his mouth and point out a few facts. I understand that was risky back then, and I'm not trying to minimize that. But as an antagonist, McCarthy is pretty lightweight.

The film, in telling this story, relies on a lot of archival footage. Too much archival footage. There's one section that was just one very lengthy excerpt from the hearings with some Senator standing up to McCarthy for a change, when McCarthy wasn't there. The excerpt must have lasted at least 5 minutes, and was not germane to the story, which is about CBS' coverage, not Senators standing up to McCarthy. It's just a long break in the story. (An amusing note about the archival footage: "Test audiences felt that the actor who portrayed Joseph McCarthy was overacting; they were unaware that only archive footage of the actual Joseph McCarthy was used in the film.")

Speaking of breaks in the story, the film features several segments of a lady singing jazz songs at CBS studios. Whole songs. Who she is and why she's singing is never stated. It's good music and she's a fine singer. But again, it's just padding. I have read that the band and the songs were those of Rosemary Clooney, aunt to the director. That may explain why George Clooney included the material, but it's still another break in the story, which isn't sufficiently interesting to begin with that it can handle the pauses.

On the positive side, the movie is beautiful. As one who once tried to be a good photographer, I have a soft spot for black and white. This movie was actually shot on color film, then changed to black and white in editing. Regardless, it looks fantastic. As a director, Clooney and his photography team definitely have a feel for the camera and compose great images.

But beautiful images do not make up for lack of a strong story.