I have mixed feelings about Trumbo. Granted Bryan Cranston gives a stellar performance as the blacklisted screenwriter, but the rest of the cast simply didn't rise to the occasion sort of making this a one man show. Especially off were those portraying celebrities, such as Michael Stuhlbarg's very dull Edward G. Robinson who neither looked nor sounded very Robinson-like, and Dean O'Gorman admittedly gives it his all trying to be Kirk Douglas but sorry, I just wasn't convinced. On the other hand David James Elliott pretty much nails John Wayne but unfortunately he's only given about three or four scenes. But the worst is by far Louis C.K.'s performance. Every time he spoke I was ripped out of movieland and reminded that these are just people acting. I think it was a combination of bad casting and simply poor acting but his depressing, whiny performance was completely annoying. John Goodman looks like a beached whale and I think the only time he rises from the sitting position throughout the entire film is the scene with the baseball bat that you probably already saw in the trailer. And I think the trailer was a huge part of the problem. It led me to believe that this would be a jazzy, fast paced comedy but instead I found myself sitting through a very heavy handed drama that simply did not let up with the thick tragedy. It's anything but frolicking as the trailer suggests, but instead it's very long and uneventful and to be honest quite dull at times. It really shoves its message down our throats, about how government shouldn't interfere with art, without even recognizing that those were the good old days. If we only could have some art today that government is threatened by, instead of one superhero movie after another. Today the censorship comes from the movie studios themselves that are owned by huge monopolies and from the apathetic audience as was proved today when I was the ONLY person in the theater to see the movie Trumbo.
Review of Trumbo
