The movie explores that true story of Hollywood writer Dalton Trumbo from being the first Hollywood screenwriter to prison. It is a film that deals with the full snapshots of Dalton's life and the blacklist for his outspoken support for organized work, and his membership in the United States Communist Party has caused a stir in his life.
Trumbo is ... a blast, even if the screenplay perversely lacks the energy of its title character, who is played with great wit and brio by Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston.
Trumbo is a solid effort made close to unmissable thanks in large part to Cranston's magnificence, the resulting biopic a gripping return to a Hollywood of yesteryear where the themes being examined couldn't be more appropriately timely.
Roach's direction is pedestrian. He turns the picture into an earnest primer of the issues of the era and a road map of how Trumbo slowly resuscitates his career ...
Tennessee Williams once described screenwriting as "the funniest but most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me".... [Trumbo] sadly does not contain any such moments of amusement or levity.
Starring the very talented Bryan Cranston as the titular character, the film is not only a successful character study and biopic, it is also an engaging and entertaining glimpse at a very dark time in Hollywood's history.
We are left with the painful irony that a film about a screenwriter so good that Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger couldn't live without him suffers from a dull and slow-moving script.
