Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind DVD > Reviews > “You don’t play, you don’t leave.”

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	superb performances, fantastic vision
Disadvantages:	story possibly untrue

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Sometimes you hear about a film, either by seeing the trailer or reading a review, and decide there and then that you want to see it or you don’t. I’m usually interested in ridiculous comedies, artsy-fartsy films, documentaries, or films otherwise aimed at half term holidays, whilst Ian tends to go for the big budget blockbusters. Now and again the twain shall meet – he recommended ‘Spellbound’ for example – but usually we like different films.

Then there are times you hear the name of a film and know nothing about it, or you see trailer and think, ‘looks okay, let’s add it to our DVD rental list’. That film usually ends up being decent enough, and now and again, disappointingly, it’s a big pile of poo. However, 1% of the time, you unearth a little treasure, and the fact you weren’t expecting much of it, makes it even more magical.

“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” was one of these films.

Based on the memoirs of Chuck Barris, the infamous game show host who invented American shows such as ‘The Gong Show’, with a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, better known for ‘Being John Malkovich’, ‘Adaptation’, and seemingly every other film Spike Jonze is ever going to make, I was surprised not to have more prior knowledge of this film. The fact that this was George Clooney’s directorial debut made it even more incredible that this film had passed us by when it was on at the cinema – I’ve always found Clooney a superb actor (since leaving ER), whilst Ian is a bigger fan than me, unashamedly admitting that if he was that way inclined, he would definitely choose Clooney as his first male conquest.

As I haven’t read the memoirs (and had no idea they existed before I watched the film, and now I keep seeing it everywhere) I can’t possibly compare the film to the book. I would imagine that as Clooney has interviewed people who knew Barris, and spliced this footage into the film, as well as involving Barris himself, I’d imagine that it’s a pretty true version of events. Well, as true a version of events as Barris himself will admit to. Consequently, in the following plot analysis, everything should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Chuck Barris was one of those men that people loved and hated, often in equal measure, and often at the same time. He got into television, seemingly on a whim to make as much money as possible, and proceeded to completely revolutionise programming. He was responsible for what many people believe the dumbing down of television, producing shows such as ‘The Gong Show’ - people so desperate to get on TV audition in front of a live audience, whilst a watching panel decide when they have seen enough. The ones we might remember here in the UK are ‘The Dating Game’, which became ‘Blind Date’, and ‘The Newlywed Game’ which became ‘Mr and Mrs’.

Somewhere during his time as a TV producer, Barris met a mysterious man called Byrd, who claimed to be from the CIA, and introduced him to the world of hired assassins. After training, and with some ingenious fiddling with one of his shows, he begins taking jobs from Byrd, and is hired to kill people all over Europe.

Whether this story is true or not is irrelevant. The fact we see Barris typing this story in the film gives an good indication that it might be a construction of his ageing, paranoid brain. Barris himself has never admitted whether this is true or not – but during the interviews with people who knew him, mainly panel members and participants on ‘The Gong Show’, they reveal that he would often disappear for days at a time, and that none of them felt they truly knew or trusted him.

Bearing all this in mind, Clooney has done a fantastic job of giving the film the correct mix of ‘bio-pic’ and ‘drama’ – the interview parts of the film are filmed in a different way to the rest, being coloured slightly oddly, making it appear that the only ‘true’ part of the film is the dream, and the rather absurd main story is the reality.

Sam Rockwell’s impeccable portrayal (or impersonation) of Chuck Barris is, as you might expect, the star turn. After seeing clips of Barris on the DVD, it’s easy to see he studied them, as he has managed to capture each nuance and twitch, from his trademark point to his wearing of a hat over most of his face. Little touches like this make it easy to believe the character, and I staunchly believe Rockwell was cruelly overlooked for a nomination for an Oscar (the same year Jack Nicholson was robbed of the actual Oscar for ‘About Schmidt’…but I digress).

The rest of the cast could have quite easily been dwarfed by such a performance, but luckily they all rise to the occasion. Drew Barrymore is perfect as Barris’ long suffering, rather dizzy, love interest, and I’ve never seen her look more innocent, trusting or naïve. Clooney himself plays Byrd, which he does so with understated dark humour. Julia Roberts, who I loathe in most things, is perfect as the calculating Patricia, another contract killer.

There are also some great cameo performances. Rutger Hauer in particular, gives his best performance since Bladerunner as Keeler, yet another hitman – I particularly enjoyed him taking a Polaroid of himself with his victim before he finished killing him. The most amusing cameos, which everyone seems to mention despite the fact you miss them if you blink, are those from Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, who play two bachelors on ‘The Dating Game’; imagine that girl’s disappointment when she saw the two she turned down!

So far we’ve got an intriguing story, with great acting. As if all this wasn’t enough, the actual film itself is beautiful to watch. The visual effects are stunning and creative; scenes that could have been ordinary are transformed into amazing set pieces, and occur one after the other. There’s a particular telephone call, which could have easily been depicted as a boring split screen; instead Clooney merges the two scenes by having Barrymore dance from behind Rockwell into the office of the person he is talking to.

It was only when I watched the commentary that I realised there were no special effects whatsoever – everything was created by good old-fashioned hard work and ingenuity. I’d highly recommend watching a bit of the commentary if you are at all interested in films, as it is fascinating. For example, in the scene I described above, I had imagined that they had simply got Barrymore to dance in the other office, and then put the two pieces of film together, but the effect was created by having a painted wall moved in and out of the scene, and simply having all the actors in the room together. The whole film is full of scenes like this, making the story even more dreamlike. In essence this is not a story that has been shot well, so much as a series of beautiful set pieces effortlessly woven together to make a story.

Clooney as an actor was always underrated, but as a director, he has been criminally so. He is visually every inch as innovative as Tarantino or Burton, and has extracted the best performances out of some of the cast that they have ever given, or can expect to give. 

Pictures for the review

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Barris confronts Byrd