Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Review
by John Ulmer (johnulmer2003 AT msn DOT com)October 10th, 2003
CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER
Doggone it, George Clooney is starting to grow on me. I used to think he was a talentless hack who played the same roles over and over with the same monotone voice, smirk and morbid look of placid self-loving on his face. Maybe it's true, but as an actor he isn't as unbearable to me as he was when, say, "Batman and Robin" (1997) came out. I enjoyed his Mel Gibson lite role in "One Fine Day," I thought that "Three Kings" was a blazingly good satire (with or without him), and that "Solaris" was one of the worst films of 2002. He's back in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," his first time behind the camera. He also shares a fair bit of screen time.
"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is based on an autobiography by the infamous television show host Chuck Barris. Barris insists that during his days as a creator and/or host for such shows as "The Dating Game" and "The Gong Show," the CIA employed him to murder "33 human beings."
Whether or not you believe his story is really beside the point--as a story for a film it seems pretty reasonable. In the movie Barris is played by Sam Rockwell as a womanizer, drunk and crazy lunatic. It starts out in 1981 and zips back to the 1950s. We are introduced to Barris through his own voice over as he recounts his days as a skirt chaser and carefree jerk.
He eventually got his show "The Dating Game" on the air with ABC, who then took it off and NBC picked it up. Later he made such television shows as "The Rah Rah Show" and "The Gong Show," but we gain an insight into his more private details here, such as his love affair with Penny (Drew Barrymore), how he cheated endlessly on her, and how Jim (George Clooney) recruited him into the CIA to be a cold-blooded killer.
Me? I don't believe his story at all. I haven't read his autobiography, I heard it is very well-detailed and all, but knowing the type of scum Barris is in real life makes me think he's either a crazy loon or he just wanted to make it back into the spotlight, and so he came up with this crazy story (I prefer the latter theory).
The film doesn't always make a whole lotta sense. Perhaps that's because Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkvoich," "Adaptation") wrote it. I liked the weirdness and sleaziness of the movie because it invites me into the world of Chuck Barris and how everything looks through his eyes. After all, his character is telling the story in narrative--perhaps that's why it's so kooky.
But there is a problem with dramatic impact. The film lacks a bit of it. Like I said above, I have no care whether or not Chuck Barris was really a cold-blooded killer for the CIA, because as a story it remains interesting, perhaps even engaging. But the dramatic impact it has doesn't come across like it should. It lacks the punch that an autobiographical film like "Catch Me If You Can" had. Chuck Barris is a bad man, the film reminds us of that and doesn't really want us to sympathize with him, but it is almost too cold. I don't want to care about Barris, but I would like the film to have some sort of dramatic flair about something--maybe not him, but perhaps for others.
The film also has trouble with its timelines and flashbacks. Things skip around a bit too much without any type of anchor. This is part of why the dramatic effect fails--it seems to be just a tad bit too much of a documentary-style film and not enough of an exploitation drama of a seedy man's life.
But that's hardly anything to beat Clooney over the head about. He's crafted a well-built machine that just needs a bit of oil in a few areas to make it run smoother. "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is Clooney's directorial debut. It's evident he's a talented director--he just needs to learn how to handle timelines and the dramatic effect of his scenes a bit more.
Note: Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon all appear in this film. These three actors and George Clooney were, of course, in "Ocean's 11" (2001) together. Just thought I'd point that out.
- John Ulmer
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