Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

democratpat A terrific piece showing the insanity that even a democracy can fall victim too, when the public's imagination and fear are stoked by outright lies and liars.'Tail Gunner Joe' covers the story of Joseph McCarthy (called by President Truman, "that most lamentable mistake of the Almighty") and his skyrocket to national prominence with claims that the State Dept harbored known Communists. This, of course, during a time when America lived in dread fear of Communism and the term 'Commsymp' had been created as a means of destroying a person who couldn't be accurately labelled a 'Communist' so they were 'communist sympathizers' or commsymp's.The horror of McCarthy's lust for power was beautifully captured in an exchange between McCarthy (Peter Boyle) and Army lawyer Welch (Burgess Meridith, who was himself labelled an enemy of America by McCarthy's gang back in the day), where Welch had hit McCarthy right between the eyes legally, and instead of trying to counter Welch, McCarthy instead names a random member of Welch's team and smears him as a communist. Knowing that just a person's name coming from McCarthy's mouth was a career death sentence, Welch gave his famous remark, "At long last senator - have you no shame?" McCarthy had destroyed a career just because someone made him feel uncomfortable.It's a matter of some significance that McCarthy went into a career spiral himself not long after being brought down by Welch. Had McCarthy's beliefs and accusations been real, they would have been picked up by another person and brought to fruition - the proof that McCarthy was a liar and a political gangster is in the fact that not one of his list of "207 known names of communists" was ever brought to light, McCarthy never proved the existence of a single communist in the State Department, and he himself died of alcoholism 3 years after his fall from fame.

ghostshirt2000 This is a great made for TV film, sporting a deep bench of wonderful actors. This is the kind of made for TV stuff above budget and vision of the major networks now. However, is this movie accurate history? Well, very few honest intellectuals could defend Joe McCarthy unless maybe after several big gulps of Jack Daniels. That said, a few facts? HUAAC was a House organ, not directly tied to the Senate in any way, and McCarthy was a Senator. Point being, there were lots of witch hunters back then. For purpose of drama, both this film and history have settled on McCarthy as the sole and thorough bad guy.McCarthy directly hurt very few lives. He did amplify a current of nervousness already running through America, and this spawned many imitators. These Monkey-seers Monkey-doers were even more hurtful than Joe, by sheer force of numbers alone.To honest intellectuals, it seems obvious Joe McCarthy couldn't catch a cold at the North Pole. As "The Haunted Wood" (Allen Weinstein) reveals, from briefly opened Soviet archives, there were plenty faithful Communist spies operating in the US. McCarthy...Keystone Cop versus Houdini basically.If one can understand there were dangerous Communist spies working hard in the US in the early 1950's, but they weren't in Hollywood, they were in Washington. If one can understand early 50's Red Scare was kind of hangover from VE & VJ day, following Soviet detonation of A-bomb. If one can understand Joe McCarthy was not evil genius of persecuting many good folk who just held harmless unpopular views (personally, I wouldn't trust Joe McCarthy to mow my lawn) but only somebody who blew on something already smoldering? Then by all means watch this movie and enjoy it. It is well made with some wonderful actors. But it ain't accurate history.

jtpaladin This movie is a horrible distortion of lies and exaggerations that were put together by the most shameless lunatics to ever work on a TV movie. The story is wrong and a complete lie. There is nothing in this movie that accurately portrays Senator McCarthy. It's just a horrible scam and it amazes me that anyone associated with this production ever got another job in the industry. The marxist-leninists who wrote this trash did so in order to attack a man who has been vindicated by history and their fear that anyone would dare to destroy communism. Unfortunately for these communist nut jobs, Ronald Reagan took over where McCarthy left off and they couldn't stop him, thus the end of the Soviet Union and its' cohorts.Never, ever watch this film if you're looking for truth regarding Sen. McCarthy. Read Ann Coulter's book, "Treason" for a better look at the truth about Sen. McCarthy.It will also help if you read about what really happened to Senator McCarthy by reading http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1996/vo12no18/vo12no18_mccarthy.htm

JackAustinCrawford It is a source of continual amazement to me that, if a person lives long enough, the opposite of Shakespeare's saying proves true. The bard said something like "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones." The opposite is all too often true. This appears to be the case with McCarthy. The longer he is dead, the more people forget about what a truly vile maggot he was. This movie does a reasonably good job of portraying McCarthy as he was and not as the new bunch of neo-conservatives want him to have been. His reckless disregard for the truth (often under the guise of looking for the truth) made him the functional equivalent of a twentieth century inquisitor. It also points out how Eisenhower stood by and did absolutely nothing to curb McCarthy. Of course, Eisenhower did virtually nothing for eight years, so this was nothing new...