Movie about the House Committee on Un-American Activities and their attack on supposed communism in Hollywood. It takes place in 1951 and director David Merrill (Robert DeNiro) returns from France to find Hollywood and his friends living in terror of being called to testify in front of the committee. If you didn't name names your career was officially over and you were (unofficially) suspected of being a communist. Merrill refuses to name anybody and his life becomes a nightmare. It also affects his ex-wife Ruth (Annette Bening) and friend Bunny Baxter (George Wendt).
This movie has good intentions and it's great that anybody made a film dealing with the horrendous witch hunts in the 1950s--but this film just doesn't work. It's simplistic to a ridiculous degree--EVERYTHING is dumbed down so anyone can get it. Also the plot is obvious (I was always one step ahead of this) and the movie is overlong. However the movie looks just great and the music is wonderful. Acting really helps this one--DeNiro is a little subdued but still good; Bening is given the thankless ex-wife role but pulls it off; Wendt overdoes it at times but is basically pretty good and Patricia Wettig (as a friend who cracks under the strain) is WAY over the top to an embarrassing degree. Also it's amusing to see Martin Scorses in a small role as a director. Ultimately the film is too bland to really work--but the courtroom sequence at the end does provide real fireworks. Worth seeing if you know nothing about what happened in Hollywood back then. I can only give it a 5.
This movie has good intentions and it's great that anybody made a film dealing with the horrendous witch hunts in the 1950s--but this film just doesn't work. It's simplistic to a ridiculous degree--EVERYTHING is dumbed down so anyone can get it. Also the plot is obvious (I was always one step ahead of this) and the movie is overlong. However the movie looks just great and the music is wonderful. Acting really helps this one--DeNiro is a little subdued but still good; Bening is given the thankless ex-wife role but pulls it off; Wendt overdoes it at times but is basically pretty good and Patricia Wettig (as a friend who cracks under the strain) is WAY over the top to an embarrassing degree. Also it's amusing to see Martin Scorses in a small role as a director. Ultimately the film is too bland to really work--but the courtroom sequence at the end does provide real fireworks. Worth seeing if you know nothing about what happened in Hollywood back then. I can only give it a 5.