A second seeing of this film recently confirmed my impressions on seeing `Missing' (1982)(qv) also a second time a few months back. Costa-Gavras has things to say and he does not mince up his message.
In `Missing' he succeeded in getting Jack Lemmon to play a convincing role, and in `Mad City' he managed to get John Travolta to carry out the best role I have seen him in: his playing of a deranged simple worker real mad at having lost his job is truly memorable. Dustin Hoffman ably supports but without exceeding himself overly.
However, rather than the actors in themselves, it is the story itself which is more important and its message: getting the story on your TV news programme before your competitors is much more important than any other considerations such as in this case, a group of schoolchildren held hostage with a shotgun aimed at them. But do not worry about them get the story live on TV at any price, what a scoop! what a sensation!
And thus we live at the dictates of that ogre of communications called TV: whether wars in Rwanda or Afghanistan or Palestinians blowing themselves up in Israeli cafés or airliners crashing into the WTC, the most important thing is to get it live on screen for the hungry masses. We are at the mercy of papirazzi, that merciless squad of camera-toting fame-seekers, who have no scruples at getting their story first or even inventing it.
Thanks for the message, Costa-Gavras: I learnt it long ago, but you tell it well.
