| Leonard Maltin/Plot synopsis: |
Engrossing story of the TV quiz show scandal of the late 1950s, focusing on a hotheaded sore loser (Turturro, in a sensational performance) and his successor on Twenty-One: instant hero Charles Van Doren (Fiennes), scion of a socially prominent, intellectual family. Overlength is its only weakness--but it never ceases to be real (if not always exactly truthful). Scofield is a joy to watch as the elder Van Doren, and director Martin Scorsese is well cast as the cold-blooded sponsor of the show. That's film director Barry Levinson as TV host Dave Garroway; look sharp for an unbilled Ethan Hawke in a Columbia University classroom.
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