In 1947 the House Committee on Un-American Activities began an investigation into Communism in Hollywood. Shortly after this director David Merrill returns from filming abroad. It is not long before he is targeted for having attended "a few meetings" a few years ago. The approach is softly, softly with the committee just wanting Merrill to name some more names for them. When he refuses to help, he finds himself gradually cut out of studios and projects, with fewer and fewer people willing to take his calls.
The period of history around which this film is set is an interesting one and one that is worth knowing about as part of the whole "learning from history" ideal. However this is not the same as the film itself being good because unfortunately it is not what I would have liked. It relies too heavily on the informative nature of the recreation of the period rather than developing an interesting script with realistic characters. It doesn't help that the film tries to be all very serious and respectful but does rather fail and ends up coming over all earnest and self important. The script also tries not to really upset anyone who didn't take the moral stance of the fictional Merrill by just focusing on him even though it would have been a lot more interesting if it had had outrage, bitterness and realism at its heart.
Winkler directs without a great deal of style and his courtroom scene is average where it should have been the best scene of the film. De Niro works his material hard and makes for an engaging lead, however it is the lack of depth and complexity in his material that limits his performance. This is more or less true of the rest of the cast which, although starry, doesn't really provide anyone in particular with an opportunity to mark themselves out. Bening, Wendt, Wettig, Wanamaker, Sizemore, Scorsese, Cooper and others are good presences but not much more than that.
Overall then an interesting film in so much as it informs about an important period of history. However it is all very earnest and safe and lost a lot of potential for me. The cast is starry but the material is middle-of-the-road and didn't give anyone the complexity and outrage that the subject deserved.
