What does it say about the CIA if this is one of their contract killers?

What if everything about you was a lie? That’s sorta the way that this movie leaves you feeling about it’s central figure, Chuck Barris. Based on the “unauthorized biography” that Barris is seen writing in different flashbacks during the movie, it weaves a story that’s so outlandish that it goes from feeling so outrageous that it must be true, to so outlandish that it doesn’t even feel like it can keep it’s own story straight. It’s full of heavy hitting actors, adapted for the screen by one of the best screenwriters of our time, directed by a Hollywood player and starring one of Hollywood’s biggest talents…but does it ever really deliver on it’s promise? That’s the focus of this Pop Culture Blind Spot, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.”

A Brief Synopsis of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”: Chuck Barris is lonely. Even when he’s surrounded by people and fame, Chuck (played by Sam Rockwell) always feels like an outsider looking in. It’s that outsider status that allows him to transition between television producer and CIA contract killer. That’s the basic idea behind “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and it’s the one that rings true for most of the movie. As a teenager, Barris is the awkward “odd man out” who’s always lusting after the wrong girls in the wrong way. Thinking that a life in television will help him get women, he starts working as an NBC page and eventually transitions to becoming Dick Clark’s personal assistant during the “American Bandstand” years. He writes a pop song for Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon (which helps him bed a fellow Dick Clark staffer played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) but yearns for something more. In one of the movie’s many “stroke of genius” moments, he creates “The Dating Game” and eventually gets to shoot a pilot…that ABC passes on. Chuck goes on one of many benders and ends up getting in all kinds of scrapes and scraps at local watering holes where he’s “identified” by a CIA recruiter, played by director George Clooney. Normally, I’m not a big fan of the “director as actor” move, but Clooney does  a good job here (as he did in “Good Night and Good Luck”) of balancing the two. So begins Chuck’s double life of television producer by day and CIA contract assassin by night. Eventually “The Dating Game” is added to the ABC schedule and becomes a big hit which gives Chuck the cover he needs for his prolonged vacations to exotic locales. Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that under the guise of “chaperon”, Barris escorted young “Dating Game” winners to places like West Germany and Poland so he could carry out dangerous assassinations on the side. It’s far fetched at best and neither Barris nor the movie ever make any indisputable claims about his CIA ties. The CIA, of course, denies it all and has since the book was first published. As more and more Barris shows make it to air (“The Newlywed Game”, “The $1.95 Beauty Pagent”, “How’s Your Mother-in-Law?”, etc.) Barris seems to loose whatever grip he had on reality and begins to use his CIA work as stress relief. All the while, he’s juggling his television responsibilities and his complicated relationship with Penny (the roommate of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character and played by Drew Barrymore). Penny’s half spirit guide and half moral compass for Chuck who continually cheats on her while at home and abroad. She’s madly in love with Chuck and seems willing to look past almost anything to be with him, even if that means accepting his terribly behavior. Chuck creates “The Gong Show” in 1976 and steps from behind the camera to host a show that’s derided by critics as “a sign of the end of civilization” but loved by TV audiences. Unfortunately, the zany atmosphere of “The Gong Show” only feeds into Chuck’s growing paranoia and the movie takes a weird turn as old friends start being killed off and Chuck is convinced that he’s next. His contact on most of his Eastern European killing sprees has been Patricia (played by Julia Roberts) and in the end it’s her that’s been mopping up old contacts with her sights set on Chuck. In a final showdown with tea, Chuck pulls a Vizzini and switches the cups to place the poison in front of Patricia and eventually kill her. Chuck returns to the run down hotel room he’s secluded himself to and begins to write “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” Flash forward a bit and Chuck marries Penny and tries to confess his double life to her but she thinks it’s only a joke…a lie he seems resigned to allowing. The movie ends with the real Chuck Barris sitting down for an interview for the movie…alone.

Why is it a PCBS? It’s a movie with a great pedigree. Barris’ book was adapted for the screen by “King of the WTF” Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich”, “Adaptation”, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) even though he was unhappy with the end result. It was also the first movie directed by handsome man about town George Clooney. Then, of course, there’s the list of stars in the movie: Clooney, Barrymore, Roberts, Damon, Pitt, Rutger Hauer and a very young Micheal Cera to name a few. Add to that the fact that the movie had bounced around between studios, directors and stars since the late 80’s (somewhat like “Don Quixote”) and you begin to see why this movie casts such a large blind spot shadow. It also just feels like a movie that I should have seen first run. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but this kind of Miramax/Soderbergh/Ocean’s 11 kind of film is exactly what I was in to in 2002…so I’m not quite sure how it slipped through my net. Of course, it seems like a lot of people missed this movie the first time around. It was a bit of a box office bomb but much of that can be blamed on the fact that it opened around the same time as “Lord of the Rings: Two Towers”, “Chicago” and “Catch Me if You Can.” It should have been a bigger movie than it was…and I should have seen it.

How does it look in the rear view mirror? Honestly, its a bit of a confusing movie to try and wrap your head around. Along with a lot of the basic biographical gloss that comes with a movie like this, we have a lot of the “American Psycho” style “Is this real or all in his head?” sort of mystery surrounding the plot. A few times, the movie seems to nod to the audience knowingly as if to say “don’t worry, it’s all a dream” but at other times it seems bound and determined to get us to believe that Barris really was part schlock/part killer. Clooney cleverly plays the idea that Barris’ shows are the “downfall of Western society” against the idea that he’s actually one of the few people willing to get his hands dirty to save it. There’s no better example of the movie’s willingness to stretch our suspension of disbelief than when Barris is captured by the KGB in East Berlin only to be traded back to the US for a Soviet spy…who happens to be one of his former “Dating Game” contestants. Is it even possible that things in the Cold War wrapped themselves in a pretty bow like that or is it liberty taken by Barris in order to make a story even better than it was? Or is Barris’ answer to loneliness the creation of voyeuristic television shows and an attention grabbing story about involvement in the CIA? Loneliness is a human emotion that’s hard to convey on film. It’s more than just the act of being alone even though it’s often portrayed as such (think Bridget Jones signing “All By Myself” into a rolled up magazine as the opening credits roll). Barris and Clooney seem to be exploring the idea that you can be lonely, even in a room full of people that adore you and that loneliness will eventually drive you to be a killer for the CIA. I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about Sam Rockwell’s performance as Chuck Barris. It’s solid, nuanced and obviously well researched (apparently he spent lots of time with the real Chuck Barris before filming began to nail down the character). It also includes, as always, some spectacular dancing from Mr. Sam Rockwell…a staple of his performance.

Final Thoughts: Overall an enjoyable movie, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” does it’s best to leave us guessing about Chuck Barris’ true past. Personally, I think he’s a master showman who may have just been able to pull off the duality required to be a killer for the CIA. He fits the profile of a killer (as the movie reveals in a late monologue from Clooney) and really seems to enjoy his work in both fields. Even though it wasn’t the movie that Charlie Kaufman says he wrote, it still feels like it’s covered in his fingerprints (shifting timelines, altered states of reality and characters genuinely lost in their own lives). It’s definitely worth sitting down and watching if you haven’t seen it if for nothing else than the classic “Newlywed Game” clip where a new bride misinterprets the question: Where’s the wildest place you’ve ever though about making whoopie?

But I still can’t answer the question: Who is Chuck Barris?