Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: Critic Reviews

An irresistible sham.

A good piece of work more often than not.

Confessions may not be a straightforward bio, nor does it offer much in the way of Barris' motivations, but the film is an oddly fascinating depiction of an architect of pop culture.

A darkly enjoyable roller-coaster ride.

A picture that is surely one of the oddest ever made.

Rockwell lets us see all the joy, lust, self-pity, and rage with which Barris gonged himself.

The movie is, finally, an enigma, not because of Barris's monstrous fibbing, but because it resists being experienced as satire for the sake of its own satirical integrity.

Who would've thought a movie about Chuck Barris could be so rich and entertaining?

Reinforces the talents of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, creator of Adaptation and Being John Malkovich.

The problem with making a movie about a hollow man is that, when things start to get heavy, you're stuck with nothingness at the core.

Not only intriguing as a story but great to look at, a marriage of bright pop images from the 1960s and 1970s and dark, cold spyscapes that seem to have wandered in from John le Carre.

The movie is compulsively watchable even if it never quite convinces you that it's much more than a fanciful story.

Maybe the title should have been Confusions of a Dangerous Mind, though the confusion, in this case, can be pretty sublime.

A blast from beginning to end and shows first-time director George Clooney is equal parts fearless, brilliant and perhaps daft. But an intriguing daftness it is.

Mr. Clooney, Mr. Kaufman and all their collaborators are entitled to take a deep bow for fashioning an engrossing entertainment out of an almost sure-fire prescription for a critical and commercial disaster.

A powerful and creative film.

A head-clearing, mind-blowing blast from the past -- one of the year's best.

You won't believe much of it, but you will laugh at the audacity, at the who's who casting and the sheer insanity of it all.

The American film of the season -- and maybe of the year, or the last couple of years...

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind works best as a rollicking trip through the pop culture of the '60s and '70s.

There's nothing terribly witty, clever, satirical, or irreverent about Charlie Kauffman's screenplay.

Stealthily thought-provoking and brashly entertaining.

Confessions isn't always coherent, but it's sharply comic and surprisingly touching, so hold the gong.

A film so tedious that it is impossible to care whether that boast is true or not.

Well-acted and well-written, for mature teens+.