Scene Selections — Geoff Carter: Clooney’s ‘Confessions’ a criminally overlooked film

Friday, Sept. 19, 2003 | 9:31 a.m.

Geoff Carter is a Seattle based free-lance film critic and entertainment writer. Reach him at carter@pre2k.com.

George Clooney's bravura film adaptation of "Gong Show" creator Chuck Barris' "unauthorized autobiography," "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" (Miramax Home Entertainment, $29.99), like the game show producer himself, has yet to receive its due.

It's one of the best films of 2002 -- maybe the best -- but audiences gave it a big fat gong. The film has yet to recoup even its marketing costs.

It's a true shame. Like Gene Gene The Dancing Machine -- a "Gong Show" regular, one of many who appear in the film -- "Confessions" has moves to confound and inspire. With a crack script by Charlie Kaufman ("Adaptation," "Being John Malkovich"), inventive cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel ("Three Kings," "The Usual Suspects") and a cast that includes Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore, "Confessions" doesn't put a foot wrong. It ain't ballet, but it gets you on your feet.

Clooney's film tells Barris' own scarcely believable story absolutely straight. Not content to talk only of his triumphs and travails in bringing "The Dating Game" and "The Gong Show" to a public that simultaneously loved and rejected them, Barris went one better in his book: He claimed to be a freelance assassin, trained by the CIA. He says he carried out hits under the cover of chaperoning "Dating Game" winners to the Eastern Bloc.

The funny thing is, we want to believe it, mostly because of Sam Rockwell's performance as Barris. Rockwell, a solid character actor best known for his turns in "Galaxy Quest" and "Heist," gives a career-making turn as Barris, a character so genuinely unlikable that his murderous streak actually humanizes him.

I'm certain the real Barris isn't a half-bad guy, but Rockwell plays him as the wildest of wild cards -- a grinning joker holding a dagger behind his back.

Clooney gives his actors plenty of room, shooting long, dialogue-heavy takes and pulling off a few terrific set changes that other current directors use digital trickery to achieve. Listen to the DVD commentary track Clooney shares with Sigel; you won't hear a glib actor but a smart and savvy director who thought his way through obstacles before they manifested themselves, trusted his actors to do the heavy lifting, and isn't afraid to name his influences (John Frankenheimer and "Stalag 17," among many).

So sure is Clooney's grip on the wheel that he allows himself a minor role -- Barris' contact, the stone-faced Jim Byrd. Rockwell's scenes with Clooney are worthy of Mamet; the two actors work hard even in Rockwell's screen tests (generously provided on the DVD).

When Barris insists he won't kill anyone, Clooney pulls a cranky dad routine on him: "Jesus Christ was dead and back again by the time he was 32. You better get crackin'."

Whether Barris' stories are truth or fiction is irrelevant. (All the principals insist that they'd rather not know the truth.) What is important is the film -- a triumph for a first-time director, a hot young actor and a fading television personality who finally finds redemption in this small, subversive masterpiece. Lay off the gong, America -- this act is solid.