The wild and woolly saga opens with Barris (Sam Rockwell) holed up naked in a hotel room, staring catatonically at the broadcast of Ronald Reagan's 1981 inauguration. Apparently in the throes of a full-on nervous breakdown, Barris decides that the only way he can make sense of his bizarre life is by writing his autobiography. As he pounds away at the typewriter, the film flashes back to his years in Philadelphia, where the sexually compulsive Barris spends most of this time chasing women. By sheer chance, he finds his true calling in the nascent medium of television. He also finds a steady girlfriend in the malaprop-spouting free spirit Penny (Drew Barrymore), who endures his womanizing and frequent barroom brawls with remarkable grace. During one such barroom brawl, cryptic CIA operative Jim Byrd (Clooney) recruits Barris to work for the top-secret government agency. According to Byrd, the loutish, angry Barris fits "the profile" to become a government assassin (which explains a lot about the current state of the United States intelligence community). Barris thus embarks on his dual life: television producer by day, CIA operative by night.

Featuring interviews with real-life Barris acquaintances like Dick Clark, Dating Game host Jim Lange and Gong Show panelist Jaye P. Morgan, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a smart and stylishly made film that has reportedly been in the works for years. At various points, stars ranging from Johnny Depp to Mike Myers were attached to the project before it finally landed in the rightful hands of the little-known Rockwell. After paying his dues in such indie films as Box of Moonlight (1996), Lawn Dogs (1997), and Safe Men (1998), the versatile Rockwell garnered praise for his supporting work in the 1999 studio films The Green Mile and Galaxy Quest. In Confessions, he's terrific in the demanding role of the gonzo, Nabokov-quoting game-show host/government assassin. This is no mere Barris imitation (though Rockwell's got Barris's Gong Show mannerisms down pat), but an emotionally detailed, full-bodied (literally) performance—Rockwell's bare butt receives such an inordinate amount of screen time that you half-expect the actor's glove-snapping proctologist to wander into frame. He is ably supported by Barrymore, Clooney, Rutger Hauer, and a slinky Julia Roberts as a duplicitous femme fatale.

Chockfull of special features, the Confessions of a Dangerous Mind DVD includes deleted scenes, Rockwell's three-scene screen test, production stills and filmed recreations of some of The Gong Show's more freakish acts. There's also the short documentary "The World of Chuck Barris," in which Jaye P. Morgan, Dick Clark, and the Unknown Comic, among others, debate the veracity of Barris's memoirs (Barris himself appears and refuses to comment). In both the six, behind-the-scenes features and his commentary track with the film's gifted cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, novice director Clooney comes across as down-to-earth, modest, and incredibly focused. As he mentions in one of the features, Clooney only picked up the director's megaphone after Bryan Singer left the project when it stalled in pre-production. He then spent four months storyboarding the film to keep costs down and minimize cast and crew worries about his inexperience. Inspired by such films as All the President's Men (1976) and Carnal Knowledge (1971), Clooney demonstrates a genuine facility behind the camera with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.