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-- Review: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) (http://www.vcdhq.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=13551)

Review: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Do you like George Clooney, do ya? Someone's watching his movies....and now, like many before him, George has found his way behind the camera and into the director's chair.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is the film adaptation of Chuck Barris's unauthorized autobiography (yes) by the same name. Barris is the creator of some of America's legendary game shows. The Newlywed Game, The Dating Game, and The Gong Show are icons of American Television. All Barris creations. (My personal fav. is The Gong Show)

As his telvision career is begining to gain momentum, Barris (Sam Rockwell) claims to have been recruited by the CIA (enter George Clooney) as a contract hitman. Not because he's a television guy but because of his personality. It seems Chuck had a strange life, to say the least. When you take a look at some of his creations....that should be fairly obvious. If you've seen him as host on The Gong Show, well it should be REALLY obvious. If you believe the movie's version of events, it is incredibly easy to be trained as a CIA hitman. Tom Clancy is rolling in his grave....wait, he's not dead....

The premise is kind of silly, until you read the book (or watch the movie) and you find yourself pulled-in. This is an ambitious project for Clooney to pick as his first directorial project, and he doesn't do a half-bad job. That being said, I can think of at least 5 directors I would have rather seen direct this movie. Oh well, I give Clooney credit for having picked it, as I'm sure he had tons of other options.

The acting is solid. Sam Rockwell does a nice job showing you the outlandish brash Chuck Barris, but at the same time the depressed and self-loathing Barris. Clooney's character is a straight laced CIA op. No real room for a break-out performance there. Drew Barrymore is great as Chuck's love interest for years and years. She can play it sweet and sentimental but still be kind of wild anf free at the same time.

Julia Roberts is a female op. that Barris brushes up against a few times....again, no real big role for her to shine in but she plays a pivotal part. And my personal favorite, Rutger Hauer. Hauer plays a german hitman that helps Barris out in East Germany and later visits Barris to warn him of some impending danger.

This is solid entertainment. If you know Barris's work, you'll enjoy it more. My wife, who has no idea who Chuck Barris is, was a little bored at times. All in all, I recommend this movie and I'll prolly end up buying the DVD if it gives me some documentaries on Barris to boot.

-K

Nice review, but do you give it a rating??

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Re-incarnated as evil overlord..

This movie for me was like a (5). I thought it had some funny parts in it, and their definetley was some phat scenes in the flick, but overall it didn't really sit to well in my stomach.

i can honestly say this was one of the most neurotic movies i have seen in a long time..... reminds me of forrest gump without the retards.....over all good flick and almost need to watch it again cause seems like the type of movie where you can miss something fairly easily. movie gets like an 8 from me. i really think Sam Rockwell did a helluva job in this role and someone should give him a cookie.



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I thought the movie was kinda okay.
I was getting tired of seeing that guys ass tho.
I agree with it being about a 5

I dont think ratings make that big of a deal, if you put a rating people are more apt to just look at it, instead of the whole review. Good review by the way, and i really enjoyed the flick.

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One time, my cousin Walter got this cat stuck in his ass. True story. He bought it at our local mall so the whole fiasco wound up on the news, it was embarrassing for my relatives and all, but the next week he did it again, different cat, same results, complete with another trip to the emergency room! So I run into him a week later in the mall and he’s buying another cat and I says to ‘em "Jesus Walt, what are you doing? You know your just gonna get this cat stuck up your ass too, why don’t you knock it off?" And he says to me "Brodie, how the hell else am I supposed to get the gerbil out?" My cousin was a weird guy....

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When ya Get 99% of the movies ya watch for free, I think we are a bit more apt to be nicer when it comes to reviews...if ya had to pay $10 for it, I be a bit more critical about the quality.

I rather liked the movie, with the little clips of former cast members thrown in for good measure. The directing wasn't half bad either, with loads of things happening on screen to keep the audience looking. There was a colour imbalance on where most items were greyish tinted, and all the cars etc were tinted bright green (and so on) which looked quite nice, but appeared tiresome as the film continued.

The cameo's were quite amusing too, worth a watch for sure.