Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9301 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-12-29
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: German, English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Showbiz autobiographies don't come any stranger than Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a fractured kaleidoscope of film styles--from sitcom to paranoid horror--accompanied by an infectious musical mosaic. It's based on a memoir by Chuck Barris--the mastermind behind The Dating Game (the format we know in the UK as Blind Date) and The Gong Show--which interweaves a fairly straight account of his toils in the television industry with outrageous fictions about his secret life as a CIA hit man. First-time director George Clooney takes Barris' bizarre book and--working with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who similarly mutated the truth in Adaptation--makes an extraordinary picture, with an awards-quality performance from Sam Rockwell as Barris.

Clooney takes the secondary role of Barris' enigmatic boss, and there's sterling work from Drew Barrymore as Barris' ditzy regular girlfriend and Julia Roberts as an espionage dragon lady. It's an acidly witty film that consistently turns the tables on its hero and the audience. Priceless tiny gags include: a silent Brad Pitt and Matt Damon as contestants of The Dating Game and Barris coming up with the idea for a TV quiz show while half-listening to a CIA instructor explaining torture techniques. --Kim Newman

DVD Description
George Clooney (Ocean’s Eleven), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) and Drew Barrymore (Charlie’s Angels) star in the comedy thriller that poses an irresistible question: what would happen if a wildly successful TV producer was also a top secret CIA assassin? While Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell - The Green Mile), maverick creator of The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game and The Gong Show, gains notoriety for his smash television shows, he is also drawn into a shadowy world of danger as a covert government operative. But soon his life begins to spiral out of control – both of them. Directed by George Clooney and based on Chuck Barris’ classic novel, this entertaining hit earned a Best Actor award for Sam Rockwell at the Berlin International Film Festival.

From the studio
· 11 Deleted Scenes with Commentary

· 7 Behind the Scenes

· Sam Rockwell Screen Test

· Easter Egg - Gong Show

· Feature Commentary with George Clooney

· 5 Gong Show Acts

· The Real Chuck Barris

· Still Gallery

Customer Reviews

Very entertaining, and Rockwell is excellent
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and first-time director George Clooney take us on a trip into the bizarre mind of American TV game show host Chuck Barris with this one. Barris, not content with being known as the creative mind behind TV pap like The Dating Game and The Gong Show, also claimed he was a hitman for the CIA. The film follows Barris's story from his perspective, so as we see him acheiving his various successes in television we also travel around the world with him as he shoots people and meets with shady figures from the spy world. Clooney and Kaufman make no judgements on whether Barris's claims are true - that's for you to decide.

If nothing else, this film is a spectacular calling card for Sam Rockwell, who puts his great charisma and manic energy to perfect use as this strange and possibly delusional character. He's excellent throughout, both as the cocky young ladies' man and, later, as the paranoid loon. Drew Barrymore gives one of her better performances as Barris's long-suffering girlfriend, and Clooney himself is impeccably deadpan in a supporting role as Barris's CIA contact. Julia Roberts has a small part, too, as do two more of Clooney's Ocean's 11 buddies in a hilarious cameo.

Confessions is a lot of fun, and it's such a fascinating and unusual story that it makes perfect fodder for a film. George Clooney proves himself to be a talented director, although it's possible he should have started out with a more simple story. If the film has a weakness, it's that Clooney tends to over-egg the cake, indulging in a few too many insecure stylistic tics, montages and whatnot. The exaggerated, playful feel is a good fit for Barris's mindstate, but there are times when the film feels too flippant and lightweight. That said, this is a very good one, and worth a watch for Rockwell's performance and the eccentricity of the story.

Who's the mole?
Close on the heels of his ADAPTATION, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman scored again with CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, based on the (fictional?) autobiography of the same title by Chuck Barris. It's also George Clooney's initial outing as Director.

At the very beginning when the audience sees a bearded and naked Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) standing as if in a trance while a frumpy housekeeper vacuums around him, the viewer suspects that the film will be something special, outrageous, or both. This is the starting point for an extended flashback as Barris recalls his young adulthood, when it seemed everybody but him was having sex, to his successful career as a TV game show creator and low-brow polluter of the American airwaves ("The Dating Game", "The Newlywed Game", "The Gong Show"). Pretty standard stuff except that along the way Barris is seduced by a penchant for violence into a double life as a CIA contract killer, and the schizophrenia brought on by his double life almost proves his undoing.

Rockwell is superb in the leading role, as is Director Clooney, who plays his square-jawed, no-nonsense CIA recruiter and control, Jim Byrd. (Byrd to Barris: "Listen, you're thirty-two years old and you've achieved nothing. Jesus Christ was dead and alive again by thirty-three. Better get cracking.") Drew Barrymore does a swell job as Penny, the on-again, off-again love of Chuck's life, but she's deliciously upstaged by Julia Roberts in a new sort of character for her, that of the seductive and deadly femme fatale spy, Patricia. ("Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours".) Brad Pitt and Matt Damon have hilarious two-second cameos on stools. And there's one scene where a Federal official lectures The Dating Game contestants on the dire repercussions of introducing risqué material into their game show appearance that alone is worth the price of admission. I don't know who that actor was, but he deserves an Oscar for a one-minute speech.

This is a movie that perhaps has to be seen twice to be fully appreciated for the deft and clever use of camera perspective, scene and timing changes, and almost-overexposed color, all of which keeps the audience on its toes wondering what's coming next. And the Big Question: who's The Mole?

This is one of the best dark comedies that I've seen in a long while. It was one of the must-see films of 2002/2003. Bravo, bravo!

"I'm impressed. You're not like the other killers.."
This was the best film I saw of all last year, and boy do I watch a lot of films. Actually, I work in a cinema so I'm sort of paid to watch films, but man, was this the best one! I can't remember the last time I saw such a cool, witty, original, hypnotic movie, with a perfectly picked cast and an astounding script (by, of course, the inimitable Charlie Kaufman).

George Clooney's first diretorial venture is so solid it's hard to believe he hasn't done it before, but what's even harder to believe is the way in which he really made the movie the tough way - the film is psychadelically layered and The Graduate standard in it's dramatic scene turns - but Clooney used no CG, and everything was done on rotating stages, bullet-fast costume changes and immaculate timing. The end result is a film that has every bit the feel of a grand, sinister theatre porduction, and the performances to back it. Sam Rockwell: what can you say? He's more like Chuck Barris than Chuck himself, and he plays the 'cool hitman' and 'psychopathic game show host' in violent measures of realism and prepsterousness. Julia Roberts is sexy and as frightening as a pair of scissors next to your groin as Barris's confedant in Russia. Clooney is great and mysterious as Barris's mentor, and Drew Barrymore is.. well, she almost acts in this one. Bless her, she does try.

The music in the film is as unpredictable and weird as the scene changes and Gong Show Contestants themselves, and the cinematography is immaculate all the way through, taking the viewer directly into Barris's warped and tortured mind. Man, there isn't enough good things I can say about this absolute gem of a movie. It's like the movie version of a successful bank robbery, or the feeling you get from watching your sister's seventeen year old best friend getting naked through the bathroom keyhole.. so to speak.