The image that I will remember is the face. The face of the political magazine presenter Ed Murrow (David Strathairn). This is such an impressively wasted, used, tired, but still agile, fighting and no-surrender kind of face that I am very surprised that I have never seen Strathairn before (or if I have, I don’t remember). He is compensating for the gaps in the script, to be honest. The atmosphere of the whole film meets the expectation, but for some reason that must have to do with the writing, tension never really builds up. Might also have to do with the ever-problematic situation of filming a more or less real story, knowing that life does not always provide for the most dramatic structures, even if the case itself has big potential. I am quite sure that a regular script writer would not have been satisfied with McCarthy sending a pre-recorded tv statement when his clash with the tv programme escalated. Nobody would dare to start a drama with the story about a sacked army employee, only to kind of drop the topic as soon as possible and not mention it again before salvation comes near the end. But life produces this kind of more-boring-than-necessary situation, and you have to give it to Clooney and his co-writer Heslov for sticking rather to facts than to Holywood narration necessities. It makes the film (in particular because of the exciting acting) a most interesting, but maybe not the most exciting movie experience.
thomas4cinema 