Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind

Synopsis: Chuck Barris needs to confess. He is not a very nice man. As the real-life creator of such ground-breaking television shows as The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show, he can claim the title of the king of early uptake when it comes to reality TV. But there is more, while he was taking out his personal vendetta against the mass audience, he was also working as a CIA agent. Or so he says.

There are some players coming out of the American film industry that are worth watching. In this film we have three of them. Charlie Kaufman, George Clooney and Drew Barrymore. Kaufman came to screen-writing in his mid-thirties, and is the only "writer-only" on the Premier’s 2003 annual Power 100 list, albeit he is ranked at 100. In taking Barris’ book, and treating it as if his role as a CIA is true, Kaufman plays with the audience’s understanding of what is real, as he does with Barris’ life although Clooney, who takes on the role of director for the first time, made changes to the script jettisoning some of its more adventurous ideas. The result is that this is most conventional and the least "Kaufmanesque" of the screenwriter's work to date  (see Adaptation, Human Nature and Being John Malkovich)

Clooney has made an impressive progression to film from his early days on television in the successful series, ER, especially in films such as Three Kings (1999) and O Brother Where Art Thou (2000). He may be accused of having been somewhat heavy-handed with his use of colour grading in Confessions, however, he has delivered a competent piece of entertainment that will no doubt be the first of many other films.

Drew Barrymore has overcome starting out as a child actor and dealing with serious drug problems in her teens to take her place as an actor and producer and here she lends her name for scale ($250,000 as opposed to the $9m she was paid in 2000 for Charlie's Angels) to help Clooney get his film up.

So how does the combination of three such enterprising folk play-out on the screen? There’s enough humour to keep us interested in Barris’ life trajectory, helped by the engaging performance by Sam Rockwell and a tast small role for Julia Roberts as a ruthless secret agent. It seems to lose pace and plot clarity about three quarters of the way in, but not so much as to interfere with the overall effect of the film which entertaining enough without being particularly memorable.

FYI: If the subject of errant minor celebrities appeals you'll also want to check out Autofocus (2003)and Wonderland (2004).

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