Review of Tabloid (2011) by Brandon V — 12 Oct 2012

The pleasure of watching Errol Morris's "Tabloid" lies in seeing an extraordinary tall tale unfolded in front of you, and it almost seems a shame to spoil any element of it by attempting anything so banal as a synopsis: it would suffice to say this is a story worth hearing at least once, pack you off to the cinema, and leave any review at that.

.. Morris nudges it all along with his usual razorsharp editing, teasing score and evocative use of archive material. I suspect there will be some who wonder how the final third - involving dog cloning in Korea (!) - connects up to anything, but it's entirely of a piece with the let's-say offbeam nature of the McKinney worldview, and with the genus of shaggy-dog story commonly heard in Morris's terrific TV series "First Person", of which "Tabloid" - more so than the director's previous "The Fog of War" and "Standard Operating Procedure" - seems a direct descendant.

"There was somethin in that story for everyone," Tory ventures at one point. "It was the perfect tabloid story." The film that story has inspired is not profound, particularly - and certainly not as disquieting an analysis of our tabloid culture as it might have been - but it is hugely entertaining, and confirms Morris as one of the foremost American storytellers of our time.