Review: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
Susan Granger
Do you remember - in "A Beautiful Mind" - when schizophrenic John Nash Jr. had
the hallucination that he was recruited as a spy for the CIA? This dark comedy
asserts that Chuck Barris was also conscripted during the Cold War - think of "A
Beautiful Mind" on an acid trip. Creator of TV's "The Dating Game," "The
Newlywed Game" and "The Gong Show," Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) re-invents
himself periodically - and, this time, he's enlisted as an independent
contractor by a sinister agent (George Clooney) to participate in secret
cloak-and-dagger assassination missions with a beautiful, if lethal, overseas
operative (Mata Hari-like Julia Roberts). In one, he inventively hides microfilm
in his anus. Of course, none of this is known or even suspected by his longtime
love (ever-giggly Drew Barrymore). Written by Charlie Kaufman ("Being John
Malkovich," "Adaptation"), inspired by Barris' unauthorized autobiography and
directed by George Clooney, it's like a preposterous Hollywood in-joke with
celebrities popping up in goofy, sycophantic cameos. (Marie Bertrand, the
Montreal bartender who was Clooney's on-location squeeze, gets a pivotal scene
playing a bachelorette who unwittingly rejects both Matt Damon and Brad Pitt.)
Barris' real-life contemporaries Dick Clark, Jim Lange and Jaye P. Morgan lend
deceptively authentic commentary to his "downward spiral of debauchery," along
with skilled lighting by cinematographer Newton Thomas Siegel, Stephen
Mirrione's editing and a memorable soundtrack. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1
to 10, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is a cynical, ludicrous, self-indulgent
3. One saving grace: George's late aunt, Rosemary Clooney, warbles "There's No
Business Like Show Business" at its conclusion.
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Harvey S. Karten
Rating out of 4 stars: 3
Reviewed by Harvey Karten
Miramax Films
Director: George Clooney
Writer: Charlie Kaufman, book by Chuck Barris
Cast: Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Sam
Rockwell
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 12/9/02
With President Bush's authorization for the C.I.A. to get back into the killing
game, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," set in the 1960's, is brought right up
to date. Spies, moles and assassinations are just one part of Charlie Kaufman's
complex plot which takes on the idiocy of the boob tube by highlighting what are
arguable the stupidest shows to be appear on afternoon television, meshing the
media mash into cloak-and-dagger doings if not seamlessly, at least
imaginatively. Wildly so. Kaufman, whose "Adaptation" opened during the same
month as "Confessions," comes off as the most imaginative screenwriter of the
year and offers evidence that in some cases, the often unappreciated scripter is
more central to the realization of a movie than the director.
Kaufman's aforementioned "Adaptation" deals with a folding of two widely
disparate themes into an organic whole, juxtaposing a neurotic writer who
invents a more aggressive, sociable and practical twin brother with a woman
whose obsession is orchids. Experimenting now with dual worlds of game show TV
and serious espionage in Eastern Europe, Berlin and Helsinki, Kaufman does not
quite pull off the same coup as he did in the movie starring Nic Cage.
Nonetheless just as he scored by seducing Nicolas Cage into the dual role in
"Adaptation," whe could not have done better than his choice of Sam Rockwell
("Heist," "Galaxy Quest," "Charlie's Angels") performing in the role of Chuck
Barris whose oddball autobioraphy is adapted for the screen with all the colors,
surrealism and fantasies that remind us of David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive."
In fact you may think of Naomi Campbell's freak-out scene in the Lynch movie as
you watch Barris, locked in a hotel room with a one month's growth of hair on
his face, pondering what he now considers the waste of his life as both a TV
producer and C.I.A. operative. Flashing back, George Clooney in his debut as a
director takes us to the world of Mr. Barris, who has written songs and books
and who is best known to the widest audience for producing some of the trashiest
shoes ever to appear on TV. Of the three principal entertainments, "The Dating
Game" seemed to me when I was growing up in the early days of the medium to be
the most conservative, focusing on a young female contestant whose role is to
ask questions of three young men hidden by a screen, winning a date with the
lucky guy who answers them to her satisfaction. "The Newlywed Game" followed,
leading up to the mean-spirited "The Gong Show," which allowed some of society's
losers to strut their "talents" before a live audience and millions of TV fans
throughout the nation only to be booed and humiliated by the masses who loved to
see people who were less cool than they.
In the midst of his TV career, or so he says in this adapted autobiography,
Barris is recruited as an independent contractor by the sinister, mustachioed
Agent Jim Byrd, who figures that Barris could chaperone the lucky dates to ports
in Europe, thus providing cover for him to carry out assassinations of people
"the U.S. does not like." While giving new meaning to the term "hit show,"
Chuck reluctantly agrees, and is seen by us in the movie audience carrying out a
few executions. As he gets deeper into his two professions hit man for the
government and hit show producer for the television public at large he becomes
increasingly paranoid, learning that a mole in the C.I.A. is out to kill
him--and increasingly disgusted with himself for turning out the trash that he
does. Doubting that he has done anything worthwhile with his life, he ends up
wishing that he had led a more normal life with his loving girlfriend (played by
the always adorable Drew Barrymore who displays all the chemistry needed for the
role) rather than mixing himself up with the likes of the sinister spy Patricia
(Julia Roberts) who may or may not be the treacherous mole.
Though "Confessions" is a dark comedy, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Rutger Hauer and others are having lots of fun in side roles and cameos, but Sam
Rockwell is the standout, mugging so shamelessly for the camera that we know
every second what he's thinking. Director Clooney and scripter Kaufman give the
audience lots to do as well, encouraging us to puzzle out which aspects of the
Barris "non-authorized
autobiography" are figments of the producer's Walter Mitty imagination and which
are real events in his life. Ultimately the picture is not as much fun as
"Adaptation," sometimes tending toward the opaque, but is a fitting followup to
Paul Schrader's exploration of the sordid life of Bob Crane in "Auto-Focus."
Rated R. Running time: 115 minutes. (C) 2002 by
Harvey Karten, film_...@compuserve.com
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