Film review: 'Mad City'
The medium is the story in Warner Bros.' "Mad City", as an invasively smarmy TV news reporter tailors a hostage situation to bolster his career. Starring John Travolta and Dustin Hoffman, this Warner Bros. release is an ambitious tale of media manipulation and personal breakdown.
In a slug line, it's "Broadcast News" meets "Dog Day Afternoon", not a bad combo, but under Costa-Gavras' grim, staccato direction, "Mad City" is strictly yesterday's news.
No doubt about it, producer Arnold Kopelson has smartly assembled an all-star movie unit, but "Mad City"'s parts are far greater than their sum. It's a tricky call for the marketers, whether to platform this topical, serious-minded film to sophisticated audiences, who will consider it old hat, or to launch it wide based on its star draws, and then watch it tumble through negative word-of-mouth.
Either way, "Mad City"'s boxoffice population will reflect bright flight -- brainy viewers heading away toward more challenging and entertaining filmic regions. "Mad City"'s best region may be on the left bank side of Europe, where Costa-Gavras is greatly regarded as a political filmmaker and the United States generally is thought of as a media circus.
Undeniably, in this age of paparazzi pestilence, "Mad City" is timely. Dustin Hoffman stars as Brackett, a loose-cannon, prima-donna TV news reporter who has been sent down from the network to the journalistic bush leagues for past transgressions. It's his all-consuming desire to make it back to the network, and, he feels, he needs just one big story to do it.
Brackett's opportunity comes in an unexpected package, when he is relegated to a puff story about a natural history museum going under financially. While on the assignment, a disgruntled ex-employee, Sam Travolta) barges in with a shotgun, ostensibly to plead with the museum director (Blythe Danner) to get back his old job as a security guard. Blam, Sam: his gun goes off accidentally, and, worse, straight into the gut of the on-duty guard. Bad luck for the guard but good luck for the vainglorious Brackett, who is inside the story for an exclusive.
You don't have to have just watched the latest inane freeway chase on Channel 2 to guess what happens next. Unfortunately, Tom Matthews' screenplay unfolds like a New York Times story: predictable, plodding, pedantic and personality-deficient. Through Brackett's interviews with Sam, we're presented a capsule portrait of the hostage-taker, a schlub who has reached his melting point.
Unfortunately, we learn about as much as this crazed cluck as we do in 20-second TV news bits about those postal workers who go berserk with guns. Yet, because the hostages are kids, the story loses a deeper psychological and political perspective. While it's fun to watch Travolta goof around with the kiddies, the narrative is largely unchallenging.
The serioso posture of the film's themes are further lunked up by an array of stereotypical backdrop characters, including an old warhorse station manager (Robert Prosky); a drippy, local news anchor (William Atherton), an ingenue, cub reporter (Mia Kirshner), a patrician museum director (Danner), a two-faced network anchor star (Alan Alda), as well as sharkish, 20-something network honchos. All perform admirably, given the constricted dimensions of their prototype characters.
For their roles, Hoffman and Travolta acquit themselves capably, given the deficiencies of the writing. Hoffman is, not surprisingly, well-cast as the bantam news hound, a cross between Carl Bernstein and Geraldo Rivera. Travolta is less lucky in his blubbering, blue-collar role. His worker-character is, alas, -- tubby, dumb and friendly. Kind of like one of those generic "Mr. Goodwrench"-type guys in the TV commercials for car parts. Although Travolta's inherent good-naturedness truly comes across, and we come to feel sorry for the character, this overblown story is, through all its staccato furor, the story of a big puppy dog overcome by the snarling, evil pack of wolves, i.e. the press.
That Sam's hostages are primarily little kids also diminishes the depth of the storyline: i.e. the Stockholm Syndrome, where captives tend to bond with their captors, is completely wasted. Having Sam cuddle up to kids is, alas, lazy dramaturgy and superficial psychodynamics. Most woefully, the relationship between the manipulative newsman and the dunderheaded assailant never develops beyond a predatory level as the slimy newsman circles his prey; incredibly, the story line climaxes with a character reversal that is largely unbelievable, given all that we have seen before.
Aesthetically, Costa-Gavras' film is comparable to an academic publication -- you know those weighty theories published by university presses who think brown-paper-bag wrappings and no gloss or glitter somehow dignify their findings.
Compositionally, "Mad City" is dullsville, but it is also abrasive: Charged with tight shots, propelled by a quick clip, painted with dull colors and muddied with odd fluty music, it's ramrodded with all the incendiary firepower of groundbreaking developments. Through all its bombastic fury, we half expect the junta to come running up the stairs and swarm the palace, er, museum. Under such shrill direction, the film soon snaps under its own strident gait. It seems likely that Costa-Gavras has no sense of humor -- a necessary punctuation for as tightly wound a story as this one -- and the film's utter relentlessness soon trips it up. How do you say "loosen up" in Greek?
Ultimately, "Mad City" is more ornery than mad. It's so stiff that even when it wanders into "Network" territory, it does not seem to recognize any story dimension other than its preachy, evil-media cant.
This rigid work, like fellows with top hats, seems ripe for comic leveling. Paging the Zucker brothers ... Leslie Nielsen.
MAD CITY
Warner Bros.
An Arnold Kopelson production
in association with Punch Prods.
A Costa-Gavras film
Producers Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson
Director Costa-Gavras
Screenwriter Tom Matthews
Story Tom Matthews, Eric Williams
Executive producers Stephen Brown,
Jonathan D. Krane, Wolfgang Glattes
Director of photograhy Patrick Blossier
Production designer Catherine Hardwicke
Editor Francoise Bonnot
Music Thomas Newman
Costume designer Deborah Nadoolman
Casting Amanda Mackey Johnson,
Cathy Sandrich
Sound designer Bertrand Lenclos
Color/stereo
Cast:
Sam John Travolta
Brackett Dustin Hoffman
Laurie Mia Kirshner
Hollander Alan Alda
Lou Potts Robert Prosky
Mrs. Banks Blythe Danner
Dohlen William Atherton
Lemke Ted Levine
Miss Rose Tammy Lauren
Running time -- 120 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
In a slug line, it's "Broadcast News" meets "Dog Day Afternoon", not a bad combo, but under Costa-Gavras' grim, staccato direction, "Mad City" is strictly yesterday's news.
No doubt about it, producer Arnold Kopelson has smartly assembled an all-star movie unit, but "Mad City"'s parts are far greater than their sum. It's a tricky call for the marketers, whether to platform this topical, serious-minded film to sophisticated audiences, who will consider it old hat, or to launch it wide based on its star draws, and then watch it tumble through negative word-of-mouth.
Either way, "Mad City"'s boxoffice population will reflect bright flight -- brainy viewers heading away toward more challenging and entertaining filmic regions. "Mad City"'s best region may be on the left bank side of Europe, where Costa-Gavras is greatly regarded as a political filmmaker and the United States generally is thought of as a media circus.
Undeniably, in this age of paparazzi pestilence, "Mad City" is timely. Dustin Hoffman stars as Brackett, a loose-cannon, prima-donna TV news reporter who has been sent down from the network to the journalistic bush leagues for past transgressions. It's his all-consuming desire to make it back to the network, and, he feels, he needs just one big story to do it.
Brackett's opportunity comes in an unexpected package, when he is relegated to a puff story about a natural history museum going under financially. While on the assignment, a disgruntled ex-employee, Sam Travolta) barges in with a shotgun, ostensibly to plead with the museum director (Blythe Danner) to get back his old job as a security guard. Blam, Sam: his gun goes off accidentally, and, worse, straight into the gut of the on-duty guard. Bad luck for the guard but good luck for the vainglorious Brackett, who is inside the story for an exclusive.
You don't have to have just watched the latest inane freeway chase on Channel 2 to guess what happens next. Unfortunately, Tom Matthews' screenplay unfolds like a New York Times story: predictable, plodding, pedantic and personality-deficient. Through Brackett's interviews with Sam, we're presented a capsule portrait of the hostage-taker, a schlub who has reached his melting point.
Unfortunately, we learn about as much as this crazed cluck as we do in 20-second TV news bits about those postal workers who go berserk with guns. Yet, because the hostages are kids, the story loses a deeper psychological and political perspective. While it's fun to watch Travolta goof around with the kiddies, the narrative is largely unchallenging.
The serioso posture of the film's themes are further lunked up by an array of stereotypical backdrop characters, including an old warhorse station manager (Robert Prosky); a drippy, local news anchor (William Atherton), an ingenue, cub reporter (Mia Kirshner), a patrician museum director (Danner), a two-faced network anchor star (Alan Alda), as well as sharkish, 20-something network honchos. All perform admirably, given the constricted dimensions of their prototype characters.
For their roles, Hoffman and Travolta acquit themselves capably, given the deficiencies of the writing. Hoffman is, not surprisingly, well-cast as the bantam news hound, a cross between Carl Bernstein and Geraldo Rivera. Travolta is less lucky in his blubbering, blue-collar role. His worker-character is, alas, -- tubby, dumb and friendly. Kind of like one of those generic "Mr. Goodwrench"-type guys in the TV commercials for car parts. Although Travolta's inherent good-naturedness truly comes across, and we come to feel sorry for the character, this overblown story is, through all its staccato furor, the story of a big puppy dog overcome by the snarling, evil pack of wolves, i.e. the press.
That Sam's hostages are primarily little kids also diminishes the depth of the storyline: i.e. the Stockholm Syndrome, where captives tend to bond with their captors, is completely wasted. Having Sam cuddle up to kids is, alas, lazy dramaturgy and superficial psychodynamics. Most woefully, the relationship between the manipulative newsman and the dunderheaded assailant never develops beyond a predatory level as the slimy newsman circles his prey; incredibly, the story line climaxes with a character reversal that is largely unbelievable, given all that we have seen before.
Aesthetically, Costa-Gavras' film is comparable to an academic publication -- you know those weighty theories published by university presses who think brown-paper-bag wrappings and no gloss or glitter somehow dignify their findings.
Compositionally, "Mad City" is dullsville, but it is also abrasive: Charged with tight shots, propelled by a quick clip, painted with dull colors and muddied with odd fluty music, it's ramrodded with all the incendiary firepower of groundbreaking developments. Through all its bombastic fury, we half expect the junta to come running up the stairs and swarm the palace, er, museum. Under such shrill direction, the film soon snaps under its own strident gait. It seems likely that Costa-Gavras has no sense of humor -- a necessary punctuation for as tightly wound a story as this one -- and the film's utter relentlessness soon trips it up. How do you say "loosen up" in Greek?
Ultimately, "Mad City" is more ornery than mad. It's so stiff that even when it wanders into "Network" territory, it does not seem to recognize any story dimension other than its preachy, evil-media cant.
This rigid work, like fellows with top hats, seems ripe for comic leveling. Paging the Zucker brothers ... Leslie Nielsen.
MAD CITY
Warner Bros.
An Arnold Kopelson production
in association with Punch Prods.
A Costa-Gavras film
Producers Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson
Director Costa-Gavras
Screenwriter Tom Matthews
Story Tom Matthews, Eric Williams
Executive producers Stephen Brown,
Jonathan D. Krane, Wolfgang Glattes
Director of photograhy Patrick Blossier
Production designer Catherine Hardwicke
Editor Francoise Bonnot
Music Thomas Newman
Costume designer Deborah Nadoolman
Casting Amanda Mackey Johnson,
Cathy Sandrich
Sound designer Bertrand Lenclos
Color/stereo
Cast:
Sam John Travolta
Brackett Dustin Hoffman
Laurie Mia Kirshner
Hollander Alan Alda
Lou Potts Robert Prosky
Mrs. Banks Blythe Danner
Dohlen William Atherton
Lemke Ted Levine
Miss Rose Tammy Lauren
Running time -- 120 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 10/27/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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