Netflix Pick – Quiz Show
This weeks Netflix Pick is a movie from the 90s with some seriously great performances. Quiz Show is the real life story about game shows in America and their responsibility to the American audience. The movie had a brief theatrical run in 1994 and seems to have been forgotten. A shame really. It’s one of John Turturro’s (always underrated) best performances.
Quiz Show is the real life story of a popular game show, Twenty-One, and the possible behind the scenes corruption. Herbie Stempel (John Turturro) is the reigning champ on the trivia program winning vast sums of money. When the ratings start to slide the producers find a new contestant that will dazzle the American audience. It’s revealed that the show may not be as on the level as the audience thinks. Stempel is pressured into taking a dive on a simple question and Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a college professor from a prominent American family, is Twenty-One’s new golden boy. To Van Doren’s credit, he is against the idea of cheating at first. When faced with a question he was given in his interview he takes the softball and wins. The cheating becomes more blatant as time passes.
Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), a young lawyer begins to investigate Twenty-One suspecting the fraud. When he starts digging he finds that Stempel and Van Doren aren’t the only guilty parties. With the intention of taking on Television as an industry he goes after the fraud.
With a runtime of over two hours I didn’t actually think Quiz Show would have enough content to fill the block. Happy to say I was wrong. The period in American Television was explosive. Game Shows were all the rave, and still are quite popular today. In today’s world the game shows are so strictly regulated I always found it crazy how much the government cared. After seeing what went on with Twenty-One it makes perfect sense. Without giving too much away, the miscarriage of justice and misguided aim of guilt is shocking and typical at the same time.
The performances in Quiz Show really set the movie apart from what could be a dry and dragging endeavor. John Turturro is well known for stupid takes in less than great movies. The other half of Turturro’s career is a subtle actor who commands the scene and delivers perfectly believable performances. I was under the impression these positives in his style were new in his later career. Quiz Show coming out in 1994 shows that the man has always been underrated.
Ralph Fiennes, an actor who is absolutely appreciated for his skill, is no less impressive than Turturro. You can see why Van Doren was chosen to be a winner by the network. You can see why the man would be conflicted with his moral situation and can definitely see that although he was an insider to corruption even the investigating lawyer didn’t want to bring down the charming young man. Quiz Show does such a great job moulding Van Doren that you feel, at times, that scenes were lifted from a well executed biopic.
Rounding out the cast are familiar actors who crush their roles. David Paymer and Hank Azaria play the executives pulling the strings and manipulating thousands of people. They do this with ease. With practiced charm. With a meticulous attention to their good cop/bad cop routine. Even Christopher McDonald, a man with a shocking number of acting credits on his resume, raises the bar as the possibly oblivious host of the show as Jack Barry.
The information displayed in Quiz Show is fascinating, infuriating, and still relevant today. The performances make the movie more than passingly interesting but something to be enjoyed and remembered. Even the set design to the not so distant past is above par. The fact that the movie is over two decades old will never cross your mind as you sit back and enjoy the ride. A movie that has you feeling for men who are clearly guilty of an injustice is impressive in the writing, even if you aren’t into game shows.
