364. Quiz Show (1994)

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro, Rob Morrow

Director: Robert Redford

Running Time: 132 mins

Quiz Show is an American film about a quiz show which brings in a young, charming man to replace the dominating champion of the series, but only if said champion ‘takes a dive’. A lengthy legal investigation follows…

This film was extremely clever. As well as focussing on the ethics of a quiz show and the trivial nature of television, which I found interesting, it created some very intriguing themes throughout, such as the guilt of the man who didn’t win fairly, and the pure jealousy of the previous champion.

While creating all of these fascinating ideas, I thought the best thing about this film was the way in which the characters were represented in such a controversial way. You could see the plight of both of the main two characters, the quiz contestants, making it very difficult to support either one, leaving you torn between them, making it even more exciting to watch, as I really wanted more information to decide who was in the wrong and who was in the right.

Although it centred around, in reality, a relatively dull and unimportant national scandal, I was delighted to see how original a story and exciting a plot they could make out of this historical fact, and because of that, I’ll give it an 8.1.