Reviewed by Victor Rebikoff.
Director: Jay Roach, Entertainment One, MA 124 Minutes.
Not too many movie goers will remember the name of Dalton Trumbo, the acclaimed screenwriter who made such a significant contribution to the movie industry over the period from the 1930’s until his death in 1976.
Jay Roach, the director of ‘Bombshell,’ provides an intensely interesting insight into Trumbo’s highly publicised life, one of Hollywood’s leading screenwriters in the 1940s until he and nine other artists became blacklisted because of their political views.
Roach’s political drama ensues following World War II when the US Congress on Un-American Activities Committee began its investigation into Soviet subversives in Hollywood’s movie industry which uncovered members of the Communist Party including Trumbo (Bryan Cranston – ‘Godzilla’).
For having their political allegiances, Trumbo and company, known as the Hollywood 10, spent a year in jail before being blacklisted by movie studios forcing Trumbo to use an alias to write scripts for B-movie studio owner Frank King (John Goodman – ‘Argo’).
In spite of the support from wife Cleo (Diane Lane – ‘Secretariat’) and children, Trumbo continued to raise the ire of most people especially gossip journalist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren – ‘Hitchcock’) and John Wayne (David Elliott – ‘Confined’) President of the Motion Picture Alliance.
As a prolific scriptwriter (sitting in his bath) Trumbo wrote the script for ‘Roman Holiday’ using his close friend’s name, Ian McLellan Hunter (Alan Tudyk – ‘Maze Runner Scorch Trials’) winning an Academy Award, followed by another for ‘The Brave One’.
By 1960 Trumbo’s awards attracted the attention of a youthful Kirk Douglas (NZ actor Dean O’Gorman – ‘The Hobbit’) who asks him to write the script for ‘Spartacus’ as does Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel – ‘Downfall’) for ‘Exodus’.
Ten years later he received the recognition he long sought for, a Writers’ Guild of America lifetime achievement award which Trumbo remarked on, saying during the blacklisted years there were no heroes or villains – just victims.
With his adaptation of John McNamara’s stirring screenplay based on Bruce Cook’s biography of the same name, Roach has added considerable realism to his storyline by recreating newsreel footage depicting the difficult events at that time.
Apart from assembling a stellar cast there is Cranston’s exceptional performance as the movie industry’s controversial scriptwriter which is complemented by Mirren’s perfectly-pitched performance in her supporting role as the spiteful journalist.
In conclusion Roach’s thoroughly enjoyable biopic should set the record straight for some of the wrongs perpetrated against certain people during one of the United States’ paranoiac periods.
Vic’s Verdict: 4 Stars
TRUMBO is to be televised on ABC TV Plus at 8.30pm on Friday 15 October.
