Chuck Barris, played by Sam Rockwell, lusts for sexual encounters since roughly age eleven. The movie, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, chronicles Barris' sexual affairs along with his dreams, his game shows, and his licentious murders.
This movie is based on Chuck Barris' autobiography. The premise of the movie can be funny. In real life, it is hard to believe that this game show creator murdered many people for the CIA (for why would the CIA let him release such information to the public in an autobiography?). But we are not concerned with real life. In the movie, Chuck Barris does kill people for the CIA. The movie explains his motivations. Barris murders because he gets pleasure from it. He may get pleasure from the murder, but I like to think that his real motivation in killing people is to make the prizes for his game show better. I will say that his motivations for killing are sheer pleasure in the act, a selfish attempt to improve his game show by raising the prizes, and a chance to vacation himself.
Ok, we have a shameless man who delights in murder and finally he gets a conscious, has a mental breakdown over existential issues, and decides to "fix" his life. But the movie does not offer any real revelation. Barris is an interesting case study, and it makes for an entertaining movie, but there is no sincere contemplation of life.
What is most interesting about this movie is that there is not much honesty. We do not know what is true to life. We see that when Barris tries to tell Penny (Drew Barrymore) about his life, she takes it as a joke. Honesty does not work. There is some issue with honesty at least.
I cannot find much in the movie to latch on to. It is fun to watch (though too showy at times) and not much else.
~Kristen Gorlitz