Retro Film Review: Mad City (1997)

Two decades ago, in a time when films used to be divided into commercial, art and political, Costa-Gavras was the uncrowned king of political films. Through his work he tried (and to some degree succeeded) to raise public consciousness about brutality and oppression in various parts of the world. With the end of Cold War the world has changed in the way that affected Costa-Gavras' career - many of his issues stopped being relevant to the world's audience while the rapid advancement of communication technology made political films obsolete by providing quicker and more efficient ways for pointing towards world's problems. At the same time, those very media became a problem - just as they can serve noble causes, they can cause a lot of harm with their immense powers of manipulation. Ironically, that issue became the subject of Costa-Gavras' 1997 drama Mad City.

Protagonist of the film is Max Brackett (played by Dustin Hoffman), television reporter who once had a promising career. An incident during which he clashed with arrogant anchorman Kevin Hollander (played by Alan Alda) had him demoted to the humiliating position of a reporter in small California town. His fortunes would change due to a routine interview in local museum. Sam Bailly (played by John Travolta), recently laid-off security guard, comes to museum and tries to get his job back. When his former boss Mrs. Banks (played by Blythe Danner) refuses his demands he tries to change her mind with weapons and explosives. This quickly escalates into shooting incident and hostage situation involving schoolchildren. Brackett, who has witnessed the drama from the rest room, contacts his intern Laurie (played by Mia Kirshner) and quickly organises live coverage of the event. After his presence is discovered by Sam, Brackett becomes hostage taker's advisor and mentor - he tells him what demands to make, how to handle police, what kind of hostages to release and in the same time manipulates his peers in order to transform the incident into the story of national importance. Brackett's plan to become media star is endangered when his old nemesis Hollander gets involved in the story.

Modern media and the way they manipulate the truth at the expense of public interest has been the subject of Hollywood films for many years. Most of those films were satirical in nature. Costa-Gavras isn't well-known for his sense of humour and any attempt to turn Mad City into some of kind of comedy would have been misguided. Thankfully, the script by Tom Matthews allows the film to function as serious straight-forward drama. Whatever happens on the screen is very easy to imagine happening in real life. Sense of realism is strengthened by very good acting. Dustin Hoffman, whose 1990s career leaves much to be desired, is very effective in the role of reporter, while John Travolta didn't need much effort to play the role of good-natured and naive blue-collar man, similar to the roles he had played in White Man's Burden and Phenomenon. The best impression is left by Mia Kirshner, who masterfully portrays instant but very believable transformation from young idealist into cutthroat professional. The film's problem occurs in second part, which is a little bit overlong and many situations are rather predictable. Mad City also suffers from unavoidable comparisons with Dog Day Afternoon and Network, two 1970s films that dealt with the same issues more effectively. However, this film would nevertheless lead some of its viewers to think about their perception of the world and with that Mad City would achieve its purpose.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on May 17th 2004)

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