Why 5th March may be a good night for Clooney - Review by Mark Daly

A Film review.

In the history of American News broadcasting there are a number of people whose shadows looms large, Walter Cronkite is one and Rather and the late Peter Jennings are two more examples, With Mike Wallace is third example. But none of them would be there if it wasn’t for Edward R. Murrow. Murrow and the CBs News team decided that Joseph R McCarthy had gone to far and that the disqualification of a young pilot from the air force on the grounds that his mother was communist or something,  was the straw that broke the Camels back.

Risking the loss of their Sponsors Acoa Murrow (played by David Strathairn in the performance of his career) his producer Fred Friendly(Clooney, who directed this, wrote the screenplay and acts as producer as does Grant Heslov who also wrote produced and stars) and Jeff Daniels as the head of News, decided to take on McCarthy and this lead to the junior senator from Wisconsin's downfall.

That story has gone unchallenged and that is the weakness of the movie. McCarthy Died in Office, of Cancer, long after he was demolished on tv by another young senator called Bobby Kennedy.  

I kind of wish that this movie had been longer. It is 93 minutes. There are many reasons why this movie  succeeds and many why it fails. The story is too restrictive, at no point even at the end does it say what really happened to McCarthy and why he fell from grace, if you new nothing you would swear that it was Murrow and team who did it on thier. The Kennedys are mentioned only once in this film and are never mentioned again. it feels overly edited, the scenes are short and you never really built up rapport with any of the characters, long enough before we move on to another scene.

The movie is shot and black and white and clooney has a great eye for detail and he is also and actors driector which means he gets great performance from all his cast but it is Strathairn who  stands above them all as the quiet, newcaster Ed Murrow, who looks like he could collapse at any moment but somehow manages to keep himself together and he looked like someone really didnt want to be in front of of the camera at all.  this is a flawed masterpiece but you should see it for the reasons mentioned above and for the warning that Murrow gave at his farewell tribute dinner in 1958.

Clooney could be the first actor in hollywood to win in both production, writing and acting categories and he is nominated in all 4, actor, director, writer and best picture.

March 5th could be a very good night for clooney indeed.
 

Good night and good luck gets a rating of:   4 - out of - 5