Quiz Show

Based on true events, Quiz Show follows a congressional lawyer (Rob Morrow’s Richard Goodwin) as he becomes convinced that contestants on a game show, including Ralph Fiennes’ Charles Van Doren and John Turturro’s Herb Stempel, have been receiving the correct answers in advance. It’s compelling subject matter that’s employed to engaging and periodically spellbinding effect by Robert Redford, as the filmmaker, armed with Paul Attanasio’s screenplay, delivers a deliberately-paced yet progressively compelling endeavor that benefits from its often irresistibly detailed, authentic atmosphere and the top-tier efforts of its various performers – with, in terms of the latter, the stars’ first-class work here matched by such superb periphery players as Christopher McDonald, Hank Azaria, and David Paymer. (Paul Scofield’s heartbreaking work as Van Doren’s intellectual father remains a highlight within the proceedings, to be sure, and the sequence wherein Charles comes clean to Scofield’s character is as compelling and gripping as one might’ve hoped.) And while the movie’s 133 minute running time does result in a small handful of lulls, Quiz Show does, for the most part, come off as an entertaining and periodically enthralling endeavor that’s aged exceedingly well in the years since its 1994 release.

***1/2 out of ****