Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Theatrical Release Date: 2002 12 31 (USA - Limited) / 2003 01 17 (USA) / 2003 (USA - Limited Rerelease)

UPC: 031398145691

Studio: Fox Home Ent. (lgf)

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Violence, Profanity, Sexual Situations]

Summary: Chuck Barris is best known to most Americans as the guy who used to host The Gong Show. He was also the creator and producer of The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and a handful of other successful game shows in the 1960s and 1970s. But was he also a hired killer working with the CIA? That's the take-it-or-leave-it premise of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, based on the memoir of the same name by Chuck Barris. Barris (Sam Rockwell) grows up dreaming of success in show biz and winning the hearts of beautiful women, but early on, he meets with plenty of resistance from both women and the television industry, despite writing the hit tune "Palisades Park" and scoring a job with Dick Clark on American Bandstand. The 1960s proves more fortunate for Barris; he meets the love of his life, Penny (Drew Barrymore), and sells ABC on the idea of The Dating Game. However, after the show has made him wealthy and successful, Barris is approached by the mysterious Jim Byrd (George Clooney), a CIA agent who wants to recruit Barris as a covert operative. Barris finds the notion of playing spy games intriguing and agrees, but soon discovers what Byrd and his partners really want is for Barris to assassinate uncooperative figures around the world. Soon, Barris finds that his life has been all but taken over by Byrd and another CIA agent, the mysterious and sexy Patricia (Julia Roberts). As he hops the globe, killing people in the name of American security (using his status as a Dating Game chaperone as a cover), Barris learns that the KGB has discovered his not-so-little secret and that his own life is in great danger. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind marked the directorial debut of actor George Clooney, working from a screenplay adapted by Charlie Kaufman from Barris' book. Dick Clark, Dating Game host Jim Lange, frequent Gong Show panelist Jaye P. Morgan, and Gene Gene Patton appear as themselves. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: Best Writer – Broadcast Film Critics Association Silver Bear for Best Actor – Berlin International Film Festival Best Screenplay – National Board of Review Special Filmmaking Achievement – National Board of Review Best First Feature [Runner-up] – Toronto Film Critics Association Best Screenplay – Broadcast Film Critics Association Most Promising Performer – Chicago Film Critics Association

Features: Feature commentary with director George Clooney and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel
Behind the scenes
Deleted scenes with optional commentary
Sam Rockwell screen test
"The Red Chuck Barris"
Gong show acts

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 11/01/2011

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 2.40:1

Audio: DHMA null

Runtime: 114 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: Spanish

Region: Blu-ray region A (North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia)

Perry Seibert

George Clooney shows the necessary skills to maintain a career as a director with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He has a quirky, unconventional eye that certainly suits the material and manages to be confident without being too showy -- he never loses sight of why he is going to the occasional visual extreme. Less surprisingly, Clooney has a sure hand with his actors. Sam Rockwell is outstanding as Barris, managing to make the audience relate to him both through his excellent evocation of the real man and through a natural charm that feels like a combination of character and actor. This is the kind of performance that gets an actor years of steady work. Drew Barrymore is her usual winning self as the long-suffering girlfriend of the main character, Clooney himself does subtle acting work, and Julia Roberts is genuinely interesting as the femme fatale. The only major fault lies in the story itself. While it is fun to guess if Barris' claim that he was a CIA agent is genuine, the film takes at face value that it did happen. That leads to a dramatically slow second half where the novelty has worn off and the story grows repetitive with Barris' cycle of assassination, game show work, relationship troubles, self-doubt, assassination (etc., etc., etc.), becoming a letdown after the hilarious rush of the film's first hour. That said, the film is never less than watchable, and any film that contains a womanizing main character being confronted about his existential doubt by a nude woman in a pool at the Playboy mansion grotto has its heart and sense of humor in the right place. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Robert John Burke  Actor 
Tommy Hinkley  Actor 
Artie Lange  Actor 
Samantha Banton  Actor 
Ethan Thomas C. Dempster  Actor 
Janet Lane  Actor 
Bruce Pepper  Actor 
Tony Zanca  Actor 
Pascal Devigne  Actor 
Christiane Paul  Actor 
Bill Corday  Actor 
John Todd Anderson  Actor 
Melissa Carter  Actor 
Michael Filipowich  Actor 
Nathalie Morin  Actor 
Francois St. Pierre  Actor 
Jerry Weintraub  Actor 
Emilio Rivera  Actor 
Suyun Kim  Actor 
Carlo Berardinucci  Actor 
Ilona Elkin  Actor 
Rachelle Lefevre  Actor 
George Randolph  Actor 
Steve Adams  Actor 
Michelle Sweeney  Actor 
Daniel Zacapa  Actor 
David Julian Hirsh  Actor 
Barbara Bacci  Actor 
Joe Cobden  Actor 
Isabelle Juneau  Actor 
Shulan Noma  Actor 
Sean Tucker  Actor 
Krista Allen  Actor 
Michael Cera  Actor 
Shaun Balbar  Actor 
Leslie Cottle  Actor 
Martin Kevan  Actor 
Keshav Patel  Actor 
Peter N. Wilson  Actor 
Richard Kind  Actor 
Jerome Tiberghien  Actor 
Sergei Priselkov  Actor 
Richard Beaudet  Actor 
Ron Di Lauro  Actor 
Jeff Lefebvre  Actor 
Andrée-Anne Quesnel  Actor 
Frank Fontaine  Actor 
Maria-Eve Bertrand  Actor 
Aimee Rose Ambroziak  Actor 
Claudia Besso  Actor 
Marlida Ferreira  Actor 
Andre Minicozzi  Actor 
Norman Roy  Actor 
Carlos Carrasco  Actor 
Michael Ensign  Actor 
Fred Savage  Actor 
James Urbaniak  Actor 
Isabelle Blais  Actor 
Tanya Anthony  Actor 
Chelsea Ceci  Actor 
Marlene Fisher  Actor 
Cheryl Murphy  Actor 
Dino Tosques  Actor 
George Clooney  Director 
Jonathan Gordon  Executive Producer 
Rand Ravich  Executive Producer 
Steven Soderbergh  Executive Producer 
Bob Weinstein  Executive Producer 
Harvey Weinstein  Executive Producer 
Stephen Evans  Executive Producer 
Alex Wurman  Composer (Music Score) 
Andrew Lazar  Producer 
Charlie Kaufman  Screenwriter 
Far Shariat  Executive Producer 
Sam Rockwell  Actor 
Drew Barrymore  Actor 
George Clooney  Actor 
Julia Roberts  Actor 
Rutger Hauer  Actor 
Maggie Gyllenhaal  Actor 
Kristen Wilson  Actor 
Jennifer Hall  Actor 
Jim Lange  Actor 
Gene Gene Patton  Actor 
Jaye P. Morgan  Actor 
Dick Clark  Actor 
Murray Langston  Actor 

Country: USA