Confessions of a Dangerous Mind | Review

Despite some first time gaffes, Clooney’s debut has its moments.

Whether Chuck Barris’s unconfirmed autobiography is pure fact or just a product of a drug binge fantasy is a rather irrelevant detail when such fun narratives are brought to the screen and happily we have George Clooney to thank. When this project was in a sink or sail status, Clooney took the filmmaking lessons from working with Soderbergh and Coens Bros. to make his first behind the camera feature film debut.

A sort of ladies man by trade, game show host and producer by day and a CIA operative by night, Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell-Welcome to Collinwood) would be my pick for the person I would love to be inside his head award. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind entails the freaky life of these mad genius-who came up with The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game and my favorite, The Gong Show. Couched by the talented CIA scout of a Jim Byrd (George Clooney-Solaris), Barris lives gets his bar room brawl release from living a double life, thus providing the viewer with some intensely amusing madcap moments. Apart from the dull subplot of a long-term romance with Penny (Drew Barrymore-Charlie’s Angels), the fun moment in this film is the cool character of a Keeler (Rutger Hauer – Blade Runner) and a touch of femme fatale with Patricia (Julia Roberts-Ocean’s Eleven).

Visually this film sometimes comes off looking like a contemporary film noir piece with some colored filtered usage as witnessed with Soderbergh’s Traffic. With a grainy, heavy in the shadows type overcoat the film easily goes from the bright sets of found in 70’s game show television to the East Berlin cold colors of a wacky off-the-wall espionage chronicle and once again, my hometown of Montreal serves as a great place for shooting motion pictures that cover the scope of the world. The bits having to do with the production of the shows are fun to watch and are inter-cut with some actual footage pieces, but the real fun is watching the unpredictable Sam Rockwell as the front man, who looks beautiful in the many poses and range of emotions.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is the kind of experience you get when you go to a rock concert, when the songs are sung it’s a blast, when there is dead time in between songs it kind of sucks. This is an edgy, lively picture, that doesn’t hit the ball out of the park but is still an enjoyable number worth the trip to the theatre, on perhaps a Tuesday night.

Rating 3 stars