GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.

In his second directorial outing, George Clooney pays tribute to the golden era of Fifties black-and-white television drama, and to a moment when a smart, brave news broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow, successfully confronted the hysteria being whipped up by a political bully, Senator Joseph McCarthy. Clooney and his co-scenarist, producer and fellow actor Grant Heslov lay out the contemporary relevance of some of the issues for anyone to see, particularly as regards civil liberties and the existence of an extreme socio-political divide in the United States. Robert Elswit's agile, lustrous black-and-white lensing mixes beautifully with the vintage 16mm and kinescope material in which McCarthy himself and others are seen. While Clooney's elegant, on-the-move visual style makes no attempt to match the more static, high-contrast look of Fifties TV, it is nevertheless highly evocative of it, providing a rich atmosphere for the densely packed drama. (Todd McCarthy)