Director: George Clooney
Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman, based on the book by Chuck Barris
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Rutger Hauer, Maggie Gyllenhall
Distributor: Miramax
Classification: M15
Running Time: 113 Minutes

Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) has always dreamed of a career in the world of TV. We’re in the world of the late 60’s American TV it should be noted, where just plain old hard work and talent were still enough to realise dreams like this. Just as well Chuck is talented and hard working because our boy is no looker, uh-uh. A great head for radio would be the prognosis these days. But its a different time and place and all is right in Chuck’s approach. He’s even managed to snag Penny (Drew Barrymore) as a girlfriend, a wild and beautifully ditzy lass with whom he can have sex without (seemingly) any ties. Perfect.

That is, until he meets CIA Agent Jim Byrd (George Clooney), who notes that the young man “fits the profile”. Instead of running the other way, boyishly naiive Barris signs up for a life of undercover operations and clandestine secret missions. Every little boy’s dream. Before too long he’s knocking off spies and undesirables with the best of them. Seems the young man has many talents.

As Chuck’s career in television as a dynamic producer continues to grow (he’s responsible for such early and wildly popular shows as “The Dating Game”, “The Newlywed Game” and “The Gong Show”), his missions with the CIA continue to ever more far flung locations. At one stage, using the shows he’s created as cover, he takes winning contestants with him on his missions to “fabulous Helsinki” and “romantic west Berlin”! Lets remember we’re talking about 1970’s Helsinki and West Berlin, hardly the ideal date!

But then, inevitably, things turn for the worse. For a start, the public are starting to turn against these early ‘lifestyle’ TV shows of his (in much the same way that ‘reality’ shows now are being panned for ‘destroying the airwaves’). He’s also realising he’s in love with Penny, but finding CIA agent Patricia Watson (Julia Roberts) very hard to resist. And to top it all off, there’s a mole inside the agency that wants him, and everyone else that’s CIA it seems, dead. Oh dear.

George Clooney’s directorial debut, using a Charlie Kaufman (‘Adaptation’, ‘Being John Malkovich’) screenplay, is a great yarn and should be taken I believe as exactly that: a tall tale. There has been much serious and very furrowed-brow debate going on over whether Chuck Barris’s 1984 book, where he claimed to be a talk show host by day, CIA assassin by night, is fantasy or fact. The debate continues to this day. To enjoy this film I suggest you don’t give even two thoughts to that conundrum and instead enjoy, as the cast most certainly are here, the ride.

Shot in wonderful, muted, grainy pastel tones throughout its length, Clooney’s film has much to recommend it beyond the story (real or imagined). Besides how it looks, some of the performances are terrific, notably Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore as the two leads. Though Barris is hardly presented as the most likeable character, Rockwell plays him with just the right amount of pathos and humour. Drew is a real surprise with the character Penny: funny, instantly attractive and just so far from what we’re used to seeing her play in films of late. Though Julia Roberts is terribly miscast and Clooney looks patently ridiculous in his moustache, I have a feeling they weren’t playing their parts for an Oscar, content instead to have a little fun. And keep your eye out for an amusing cameo by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon halfway through, in a nice little gag that will have you nodding knowingly.

The whole film to me played like a highly stylized theatre piece and I loved that about it. I wasn’t asked to believe anymore than I wanted to and the effect in the end was to allow me to thouroughly enjoy the show.This is not the film that will set straight the record on Chuck Barris’s controversial life. In fact, as an historical document it is virtually useless. But that in no way diminishes this film’s worth because I honestly don’t believe Clooney was setting out to either prove or disprove Barris’s claims. I believe instead he recognised the worth of a very darkly funny script and the chance to tell a great story in his own style. At that he has succeded admirably and the film is a great ride for it’s entire 113 minutes.

This film is being re-released by Miramax in a most unusual move by them (it was originally first shown in American theatres late last year, but will show there again early August this year). Somebody believes this film didn’t get the audience it deserved first time around and I dare say they are right.

Go see it.

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