Mad City

Interesting look at an emotionally crippled man as he goes out of control after losing his job. He holds several children and a few adults hostage in a museum after the curator refused to discuss his termination. One of the hostages is a newsman who winds up acting as the liaison between the police and the gunman. The situation leads to national prominence, drawing in an unscrupulous network newsman who only wanted to feather his own nest with the story. Good movie about a not unbelievable happening.

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.

I was so depressed when I left this movie - depressed in a good way though, in the way the filmmakers wanted me to be. "The media has become an out-of-control circus," I thought to myself. Certainly not an original thought or insight, and not extremely different from many other movies and stories out there with a similar message. The difference with "Mad City", though, was that it didn't play this insight for satire or sly comedy. There's an anger and a sadness that runs through the entire movie - a burning regret that this is the way things have to be. The filmmakers could have easily reached for humor or gaudy overstatement to make their points (as was done, say, in "Network" or "Natural Born Killers") but instead they keep most everything at the human level, and that makes all the difference. We come to feel really bad for the Travolta character; the screenwriters' making him such a simpleton is, I'll admit, a bit manipulative, but as manipulations go it's a good one and a smart one - it lets us see the toll in human terms of the media frenzy. Dustin Hoffman and particularly Alan Alda are expert in their roles as media sharks, and the sort of Mutt and Jeff (or perhaps George and Lenny) relationship which Hoffman and Travolta get into here is really marvelous. It has beats of comedy to it, while never being anything less than totally serious (kind of like Hoffman and Cruise in "Rain Man" - though the film never strains for that connection).

I think of this movie often in conjunction with "Wag the Dog," Hoffman's other movie that year and for me it's no comparison: "Wag the Dog" is gleefully cynical, seems to take real joy in the media being so ever-present and the audience being so easily conned. For me, that rings as hollow satire; "Mad City" by truly trying to examine and get us to think about (not just laugh at) the media's power is miles away the better film.

A brilliant examination of our media-driven culture, by a film-maker who has lost none of the passion and intelligence which previously crafted such definitive political thrillers as 'Z' and 'State of siege'. I am staggered that Costa-Gavras could bring this one off while actually working within the American media empire he excoriates!

There's enough stuff here to keep any serious media-studies or political theory courses in seminars and theses for years! I immediately bought a video copy after seeing it - in Glorious SpottiVision - on Britain's quirkily watchable Channel 5; I shall be giving it regular viewings from now on. Few and far between are such examples of intellectually adult and satisfying cinema these days. Truly one to savour, unless you prefer to leave your brains out when watching films.

And Travolta's performance as the wretched ex-guard - a far from simple simpleton - is a revelation: The man is magnificent - Oscar-worthy - the great Hoffman is forced to accept a supporting role!

A great, widely misunderstood film by a true master of cinema.

I just finished watching this movie and I must say that I am awestruck. Everyone around the globe should be exposed to the truth of what the national news media has at their fingertips, the power to move the public opinion to one side or the other. This film exemplifies to the last period exactly what I fear so many are ignorant to, and that is the fact that what we see and hear on our televisions everyday lies in the palm of executives and celebrities (news anchors) who run the networks. I was amazed at the amount of detail that was put into this film to show exactly that. Nothing is left unsaid. Bravo to a production all too unknown.