Every so often there will be a movie that has been recommended to me or that I've heard is pretty good for a while, and I just never got around to checking it out. That's been the case with the 1994 film Quiz Show.
In a nutshell, the film is about a 50's game show called 'Twenty One' on NBC that is rigged in order to generate more public interest, thus increasing ratings and generating more money for the show's sponsor. Eventually when the ratings plateau, the two men who run the show Dan Enright (played by David Paymer and Albert Freedman (played by Hank Azaria) convince the recurring champion Herb Stempel (played by John Turturro) to lose on purpose, so that a good-looking, marketable guy named Charles Van Doren (played by Ralph Finnes) can be the champ. Of course after throwing the game, Stempel is bitter and he'll tell anyone who will listen that the game is rigged. It doesn't take long for a young congressional lawyer named Dick Goodwin (played by Rob Morrow) to catch wind of the possible rigging and he heads to New York to investigate.
From there it's a lot of Van Doren feeling guilty, Stempel being angry, Goodwin trying to build a case, and Enright trying to cover it all up, but it's done in a very entertaining way. For the most part it's all well written, well directed, and well acted which is especially important because this one could have very easily been a dull, run-of-the-mill, corruption movie. I particularly liked Rob Morrow and Ralph Finnes in the film, but even some of the smaller roles like Christopher McDonald as the game show host and Martian Scorsese as the 'Geritol' executive manage to stand out.
Overall, it's a good movie. It's not one I foresee myself watching over and over, but I definitely enjoyed it.
I give this one a 4 out of 5.
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