Syl Dalton Trumbo was an Academy Award winning screenwriter who was blacklisted in Hollywood during the McCarthy years. Bryan Cranston was well-honored with an Academy Award nomination for his performance as the smart-mouthed screenwriter. Diane Lane played his long-suffering wife, Cleo, who supports him. Dame Helen Mirren was perfect as Hedda Hopper actress turned gossip queen. The film has a stellar cast such as Roger Bart, John Goodman and Louis C.K. The actors who played Kirk Douglas and John Wayne were perfect with their voices and appearance. The film was well-done and well-deserved to tell a forgotten story. I would like to see Dalton Trumbo get a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures posthumously.

Pjtaylor-96-138044 The story itself isn't made apparent until around an hour in and even then there's not a clear through-line as 'Trumbo (2015)' tries to balance its bio-pic sensibilities with its apparently moralistic central ethic. The problem with this is that it's never made properly clear what the main message of the flick is - whether it be to support freedom of speech, to oppose the blacklist that plagued some screenwriters in the 40s and 50s or even to just outright condone the protagonist's communist ideologies. There's also an unbalanced and uncomfortable combination of composite and real-life characters that not only offsets the credibility of the piece but also downright calls into question its intent. The relatively unfocused feature is a little too baggy for its own good, too. The performances are all decent, if occasionally a little pantomime, though and there's some entertainment to be had throughout. It's just a tad ironic that it could've used a tighter screenplay. 6/10

grantss The story of Dalton Trumbo, an extremely gifted screenwriter whose career was almost destroyed by the Communist witch hunts and resulting Hollywood blacklist of the late-1940s/early-50s. We see how the witch hunts unfold, the results and how Trumbo manages to survive and ultimately thrive.A movie which depicts the darkest period of Hollywood's, if not America's, history. More than just showing the injustice, hysteria and lunacy involved, we see the effect this has on the people who were victims of the events. Very compelling and engaging viewing.Mixed in with the drama is some wonderfully warm, often dark, humour. Director Jay Roach definitely shows where his past experience lies...Superb performance by Bryan Cranston in the lead role, for which he received an Oscar nomination. Solid supporting cast that includes Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alan Tudyk and Louis CK.

guylyons I love cinema, and time after time failed to appreciate the importance of a good script. Take the classic film Spartacus, and listen to the lines of Olivier, Laughton, Ustinov, Douglas. Yet i always leaned towards Spartacus as the finest epic ever made. Trumbo was an education, as Cranston rattled off his lines in his bath, and it hit me, we cinema goers, who are not acting students, just might underestimate the importance of script writing. As a film Trumbo does a fine job as telling us this, and it is far more important than the commie witch hunting business. Senator mccarthy died out as the cold war cooled, and common sense prevailed. I loved the film, and now i am far more critical of cinema than ever before, as i see so many movies with dreadful lines , no story and overrated CGI effects.