Good Night, and Good Luck

Review by Colin Moore

For a flick about some guy who used to be on TV, Good Night, and Good Luck is a startlingly cracking sophomore effort by George Clooney.

Whether or not from lessons learned via his work with Steven Soderberg, or what he managed to pick up by watching Natalie and Tootie on 'The Facts of Life' TV show, Clooney is out to impress in this tightly bound vignette of journalism icon Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn).

Murrow...it's a name that anyone who has taken a media communications class will know, and any generation that calls Brill cream an essential travel item, should.

Murrow was American broadcast journalism's original idealist, and he lived it on the airwaves. The Emmy Award winning 'See it Now' (1951-1958) was his first television vehicle, a news and public affairs program that gave a face, in living black and white, to the voice that had already reeled in America's ears during his WWII radio broadcasts.

Good Night, and Good Luck takes a celebrated slice out of See it Now's eight year run, when a somber Joseph McCarthy was high in his pursuit of communist sympathisers. The footage of McCarthy is real, which both adds authenticity and a JFK style unsurity to the film (unlike "Big Brother 24" though, the merits of this story can be researched).

Either way, McCarthy is perfect as himself, as sweaty-faced and dislikable a character in reality as could ever be duplicated by an actual actor, Eric Roberts the exception. Murrow and producer Fred Friendly (Clooney) decide to take him on in the name of values beyond mere journalistic oaths.

The fun is in watching Murrow and his team of seasoned professionals squeeze democratic ideals and virtue into their attack, daring but careful enough in their approach not to cut their own legs off. They tip toe aggressively, butting heads with the American military and CBS head William Paley (Frank Langella), who while respecting their motives, can't help but be mindful of their sponsors and the employees who depend on them.

Money. It was bound to be a factor, an impediment to truth and liberty, but here it's not a contrived device. If any true to life event helped to give rise to the modern film cliche "money corrupts", this is one.

It's an American story but it's also the story of a man, Murrow, however summed up over the course of those historic days in 1954. Fitting maybe.

Today's lives aren't made or broken in the course of a media sound byte, just judged absolutely. Still, what Clooney serves up has the focus of the evening news in watchable silky shades of charcoal.

It's lovely to look at. The corridors of the CBS studio are a German expressionist funhouse without the slashing angles, and as Murrow and his bi-line swat team exhale wisps of Kent across their own white starched collars, you're reminded once again that at least smoking will always look cool.

Strathairn is already being touted as Oscar potential for his spot-on depiction of Murrow. I couldn't say, being as distanced from the real man as anyone without a hair piece or a mortgage, though it is an addictive portrayal of stern journalistic professionalism and principle in a man with a gift for making every word count. And he wastes no time.

In the opening minutes, Clooney shows his adeptness at floating cameras and rack focusing during a pre-event schmoozing at a Radio and Television News Directors Association dinner. The mood is light, full of smiles and back patting from career brothers in arms.

It settles, and Murrow steps up to the mic, delivering a series of statements pegging the industry as being "fat, comfortable, and complacent," with television being ever more used to "detract, delude, amuse, and insulate us." There's definite currency in his words.

For anyone watching it's hard to not realise exactly what he means. Maybe knowing what he stood for, without knowing the man, is enough for now.

4 out of 5

Good Night, and Good Luck
Australian release: Thursday the 15th of December, 2005.
Cast: David Strathairn, George Clooney, Rose Abdoo, Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson.
Director: George Clooney.
Website: Click here.

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