‘Sixty-four thousand dollars for a question, I hope they are asking you the meaning of life…’
It’s weird how occasionally a cinematic behemoth will simply pass you by. For me, examples include John Wayne, Sidney Poitier and, most pertinently for this article, Robert Redford. The latter is an Oscar winning actor/director who has appeared in many very serious and very critically acclaimed films over the years that I have never seen. I’ve never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I’ve never seen All The President’s Men. I have recently seen Ordinary People, another Oscar winner that Redford directed. So I went into this oddity from the ’90s, directed by Redford and starring John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes and Rob Morrow, not really knowing what to expect.
Twenty-One is a wildly successful quiz show in 1950s America with vast sums of money at stake. Herbie Stempel (Turturro) is on a hot streak, but he has a challenger in the shape of academic darling Charles Van Doren (Fiennes). The problem is the fix is in, none of it is real and the network asks Stempel to take a dive.
First off, Quiz Show looks beautiful. Perfectly capturing that idealised version of suburban ’50s America that was so popular in the ’90s (see also, Back to The Future and Pleasantville). The timeless acting duo of Turturro and Fiennes slot in perfectly to their surroundings, both convincing as a working class live wire and sophisticated college professor respectively. The supporting cast are great too with Rob Morrow particularly excellent as Dick Goodwin – the man attempting to bring the whole house of cards crashing down.
Quiz Show does what every great movie should do – it asks questions. Not just of its characters, but of the audience too. One of those devilish hypotheticals where we all hope we would do the right thing, but if the money was on the table… who knows? This moral quandary, combined with a series of assured performances, is what keeps Redford’s movie entertaining and compelling throughout. Perhaps one of the more underrated films of the ’90s. Well worth revisiting.