Fantastic!

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Costa-Gavras's Mad City has too many familiar elements ranging from Dog Day Afternoon to Falling Down to Ace in the Hole but something has gone awry in the screenplay as its neither sharp nor with grim humour.John Travolta is Sam Baily a museum security guard that has been laid off sue to budget cuts. He is so embarrassed that he has not told his wife of his joblessness. Seething with anger he goes to the museum and holds his boss (Blythe Danner) and a class of visiting school children hostage at gunpoint which recklessly goes off and wounds his form workmate.Also trapped in the museum is Max Brackett (Dustin Hoffman) who sees and opportunity to take advantage by broadcasting on the sly live on the local news. When Sam catches him, Max exploits Sam's naivety to bolster his own flagging career by promising Sam to spin the news to make him popular and allow him to air his grievances to the media.Mad City shows how a minor incident spirals out of control and becomes a national incident. Before long the FBI takeover from the local police, the major networks come down hard on both Brackett and Bailey and no one is quiet in control as they thought they were.The film is proficiently directed by Costa-Gavras but I expected more rather than a reminder of previous films dealing with a similar subject matter that did it better.Mad City has star power but low wattage.

Travolta does a superb job of playing a semi-educated yet noble working man who doesn't know how to deal with bad luck. He doesn't even understand that his lay-off isn't his fault and nothing can be done about it. He stumbles into a hostage taking situation and initially is too upset to agree to anything, including immediate surrender. The theme is not altogether incredible in our times an embittered employee going berserk and threatening violence. Problem is that Travolta is saddled with the challenge to portray this unwitting hostage-taker, part antagonist and part victim. I'd contend that he failed to bring out this delicate dichotomy. Even Hoffman's full-blooded newsman with a childish, self-centered ambition and some very sardonic light moments in the earlier half, cannot save the film from its maudlin second half, by which time it's already too late for us to care. The screenwriters added bit of humor to this involving story and that made it even better. It's a decent entertainment and certainly recommended.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

(18%) A very typical, tame Hollywood stab at a hostage situation drama with focus on the news media manipulation of real life and death situations. Quite honestly this is a poor movie. Dustin Hoffman is borderline terrible as he lazily mutters his way through the entire movie acting almost as bored as the poor unfortunate audience, as if I had paid money to see this then I'd feel more than a little cheated. While Travolta is far from on form, but at least he's as entertaining to watch as he usually is. The script is lame brained Hollywood trash that has an interesting and important concept of a man going above and beyond to try and get his job back, but it is so poorly developed that Travolta's character comes across more as an idiot than someone worthy of any sympathy. Couple that with the kidnapped kids having no real problem with armed men keeping them hostage away from their homes and family for days on end, and the final reel that has a terrible sense of pointlessness about it. My advice, give this 90's flop a miss.

Albeit something of a spoiler, this film ends somewhat like "Soylent Green" in which the protagonist screams "Soylent Green is people!" to awaken and reveal a relevant truth; and so too does the character of Max Bracket, portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in an awesomely tragic and long crane shot declare: "WE KILLED HIM, WE KILLED SAM!" as a throng and horde of media and on-lookers engulf him. This film is a biting indictment of the media circus that we look upon as Network and Cable news, and it shows how one story, the story of a simple yet complex man can be manipulated to fit the needs of those manipulating the supposedly objective nature of the news. "Mad City" shows that there is no such thing as objective reporting, or even loyalty amongst reporters, and that integrity rests with the subjective individualists such as Max Bracket who seem to have the bottom line of a scoop in their best interest, but whose humanness and ethicality cause them to care and empathize with their subjects. "Mad City" therefore, should be compulsory viewing for all Mass Comm majors for it shows how egos can overpower what should be the real impetus behind the news: the pursuit of the truth, and not sensationalism.