Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: Movie Review, DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

Directed by George Clooney, written by Charlie Kaufman, 115 minutes, rated R.

The George Clooney movie, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," from a script Charlie Kaufman based on Chuck Barris' 1982 "unauthorized autobiography," is just as empty and as gimmicky as the game shows Barris created in the 1960s and ‘70s.

You know the shows--such stunners as "The Dating Game," "The Newlywed Game" and "The Gong Show," programs in which people happily humiliated themselves and their families for any number of luxuries, such as a fantastic new Fridgidaire, a top-of-the-line Whirlpool sauna or a chaperoned trip to Helsinki.

The movie, which marks Clooney’s first time as a feature film director, stars Sam Rockwell as Barris and asks the sort of questions Clooney and Kaufman are hoping all of us have been toiling over for the past 21 years.

Was Chuck Barris’ 1981 nervous breakdown the result of the harsh and unrelenting criticisms he received for tossing three consecutive wrecking balls into the heart of pop culture? Or could it be that his mental collapse was due to the guilt he felt for murdering 33 people in his alleged double life as an assassin for the CIA?

Yes, an assassin for the CIA. Whatever the case, the movie ultimately doesn’t answer because, in the end, it ultimately doesn’t give a ba-da-bing about Barris’ life beyond the gong.

Indeed, truth be told, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" isn’t particularly interested in Barris or whether he was a globetrotting government thug for hire, as he claims he was in his book. Instead, the movie just sort of goes along for the ride, taking Barris mostly at his word while interjecting interviews with real-life people close to him—Dick Clark, Jaye P. Morgan and a wheelchair-bound Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, among others--who only serve to further muddle the issue of Barris’ connection to the CIA.

If anything, this movie is more about Clooney’s search of a cinematic style. Employing tricks he learned from his friends Steven Soderbergh, Spike Jonze and the Coen Brothers, his movie is an imitative mishmash of ideas, a cinematic whoopee pie in need of editing that follows Barris’ early years in television straight through to the present day.

Rockwell is fine as Barris but it’s Drew Barrymore’s turn as his longtime girlfriend Penny Pacino that’s the standout. Julia Roberts is featured in a cameo as CIA operative Patricia, but she's too stiff and self-aware for her own good, offering little more than a talking head beneath a neverending series of wigs.

And as for Clooney himself, who sports a fake-looking mustache as CIA agent Jim Byrd, he gives another one of those patented Clooney performances as a cool, all-knowing hipster, which really, after playing so many cool, all-knowing hipsters, is becoming a bit tired.

What’s bizarre about "Confessions" is that it gives an epic sweep to a man who, on "The Gong Show," always seemed so stoned out of his mind. There’s no question that Barris was an interesting character, but to treat him as if he were an icon, as this longwinded movie does, is enough to inspire anyone to bang that old gong of his loud and clear.

Grade: C-

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