GOOD NIGHT, OSCAR: SEAN HAYES IS THE FAMED IVORIES-TICKLER
7 / 10
It could be that Good Night, Oscar exists as much as anything for handing Hayes an at-the-ivories tour de force. Otherwise, his Levant portrayal is strong enough. He bumbles and stumbles across Rachel Hauck‘s couple of NBC studios, constantly entrenched in Levant’s havoc, lighting up as obsessively as Levant did. Perhaps aficionados won’t be entirely watching the commanding grouse their guy was, but Hayes adulators will assume they’re getting the real thing. Could be the same for old-time Paar-tisans. Rappaport doesn’t seem to be out to impersonate the man and his assured-yet-uncertain-of-himself manner. He gets much of the Paar’s professionally charming ways when in front of television cameras. The other cast members, Bergl chief among them, respond to Peterson’s serviceable direction. As for the audience groups cited above: Good Night, Oscar has something, if not everything, for all three.
