*** - This 2002 directorial debut for George Clooney stars Sam Rockwell as iconic 60s/70s game show producer and host Chuck Barris in a film that is a loose biopic based on his memoirs. Overall I guess this is a pretty good movie, with a fair amount of humor stemming largely from the over-the-top persona of Barris himself which is played up even more by Rockwell. Strangely, though, the film concentrates rather heavily on the (presumably fictional) employment of Barris by the CIA as a hired assassin from before his TV career took off all the way through the 80s. That aspect is played up for laughs to a large degree, while Barris’ odd personal life and relationship with a long-time hippie girlfriend (played by Drew Barrymore) have a more serious tone. I felt that was an odd choice by the filmmakers. While the movie had a pretty lighthearted tone throughout – even when dealing with things of a more serious nature – the end of the film landed like an anvil on Wyle E. Coyote, with a preachy message about not wasting one’s life and the ravages of time and so forth. Frankly, I don’t need George Clooney telling me what to do with my life. I’ll waste it however the hell I feel like, thank you very much.
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