Mad City (1997)

Proof that taking on Big Subjects won't result in a Big Movie without some imagination or originality. Why has TV become Hollywood's bogeyman for the very late twentieth century? Mad City has an almost identical storyline to Billy Wilder's 1951 classic Ace in the Hole, still the best movie about media ethics.

Fmovies: When I first saw that "Mad City" had an average rating of 6.0 in IMDb, I got a little confused: Why doesn't it get something higher? After all, it features a great direction by Costa-Gavras, good performances (especially from the lead actors), and an interesting plot. So why did it not get something like an 8.0, the grade I voted for the film? It occurs to me that a possible reason for a restrained vote might be that many people are perhaps not ready to admit that what is shown in the film is the naked reality: In other words, it is difficult for some to swallow that today the events are not simply portrayed, but are actually shaped by the media, and especially the TV; the news people can make someone a hero, and at the next moment make him a hated man; they can produce a big story out of nothing, and they can sweep a significant event under the carpet without anyone noticing.

Costa-Gavras illustrates this vividly in "Mad City". Sam (Travolta) has been fired from his job as a security guard in a museum. In desperation, he goes to his employer armed with a gun and explosives, trying to make a pointless request to have his job back. However, things get out of hand as he accidentally shoots a former colleague, and he decides to take some kids hostage. The above events unfold in front of the eyes of Max (Hoffman), a TV reporter whose career has flopped, who happens to be there. Max immediately takes advantage of his golden opportunity, and gets the scoop. Sam follows Max's directions, and the media industry gradually shapes the developments of the saga, with the authorities mainly watching rather than influencing the events.

It may sound exaggerated, but sadly this is how things work today. Publicity is everything, and criminals of all stripes, from naive types such as Sam, to sinister ones, want to use media to convey their message through their deplorable acts; media people, from their side, mainly care to get high ratings, and hence try to exploit such situations towards their own advantage, not the advantage of the general public. The result is ugly, and the few exceptions simply confirm the rule.

Costa-Gavras has done a great job in portraying this problem through this fictional, yet interesting story. Both Hoffman and Travolta are very convincing in their roles, the first as the ruthless journalist who starts to see the light, and the second as the confused, victim-cum-criminal.

I believe "Mad City" is a movie that one has to view with an open mind. If this happens, you will never watch the 8 o' clock news in the same angle as before... 8/10.

Costa-Gavras is known as a political director and the most part of his movies are intriguing and makes us thinking about our way of see/accept the political facts in world. Although this movie is not necessarily political, makes us thinking at this time, about the influence of the media in the facts and in our lives. In this movies, two different lives had being linked by a casual meeting in a museum: A reporter (Dustin Hoffman) whose career was marked by a mistake made in a network, is trying to "resurrect" his work making a report about a financial scandal when he's sent to make a report in a museum. At the same time, a guard of the museum (John Travolta), fired some days before because of cut of budget, goes there trying to have a conversation with the manager and convince her to give his job back. At the same time that the reporter realizes it can be a resurrection for him, the things run out of control when other media reporter challenges the guard and him... Besides the excellent performances of Hoffman and Travolta, Costa-Gavras makes once more, a very smart movie that can't be missed.

Mad City fmovies. 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 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.

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.