MAD CITY (Warner - 1997) Starring John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Mia Kirshner, Alan Alda, Robert Prosky, Blythe Danner Screenplay by Tom Matthews Produced by Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson Directed by Costa-Gavras Running time: 114 minutes
**1/2 (out of four stars)
Alternate Rating: B-
Note: Some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers. Be forewarned.
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The situation is explosive. A lone former employee has commandeered the Museum of Natural History. Armed with a shotgun and explosives, he's wounded a security guard, and holds a few museum employees and a visiting class of young children hostage. Holed up behind the relative safety of museum's security implementations, his sole liaison to the police and outside world is -- a ruthlessly ambitious, ethically bankrupt TV investigative reporter? Uh-oh.
Such is the scenario for Costa-Gavras' MAD CITY, which, through exposition of the increasingly-compromised ethics and outright dishonesty in modern television reporting, wants to be a searing indictment against the media, but ultimately produces little more than a singe.
Chief in its problems is its lack of originality; this is simply a story which is too familiar to be told in such a straightforward manner. Not only has the theme of media manipulation been addressed in similar fashion in several other films, but it's safe to conclude that by now the increasingly mistrusting and suspicious public is jaded enough to fully realize that the reporting it absorbs through print, radio, and television comes with a spin courtesy of the source which delivers it. Tom Matthews' screenplay for MAD CITY tells us nothing new in this respect; it's preaching to the converted.
Essentially a character study which focuses on the everchanging and curiously symbiotic relationship between gunman Sam Baily (John Travolta), a museum security guard recently laid off due to budgetary constraints who accidentally triggered the hostage siege when returning to attempt to plead his case to museum director Mrs. Banks (Blythe Danner), and reporter Max Brackett (Dustin Hoffman), a former network star desperate to regain his ace status after being demoted to local coverage, MAD CITY is relatively intimate and staid enough that it could function in a glossed-down form as a stage production.
Sam is not a bad man: he's effectively a slow-witted simpleton played by Mr. Travolta as a lost puppy dog who haplessly bumbled his way into the volatile situation presented in MAD CITY. The film takes great pains to assert his relative innocuousness -- his shooting of the other security guard (fine character actor Bill Nunn, curiously billed extremely low considering his substantial role in the film) was accidental -- by presenting him with a childlike mentality: he frolics with and wins over the captive schoolchildren, and perpetually turns to Max for guidance. In this treatment, MAD CITY tries to be a bit too cute for its own good at times, which undermines the tension inherent in the situation.
Of course, Max is happy to pull the strings behind this story and milk it for all it's worth -- this is his ticket back to the big time. While the film is often simply blatantly unsubtle with its theme of media manipulation and sensationalism, as evident by a recurring thread in which Max tutors Sam on how to play up the situation in order to win public support (and of course, in his own self-interest, create high ratings), as well as a scene where Max edits and syncs interview footage until the final product corresponds with what he wants his subjects to say, one can almost relish his forthright, unapologetic lack of scruples. While not disturbing as the film would seem to like, Max's aggressive naked ambition occasionally proves to be quite amusing: a particularly good moment in the film is a flashback sequent which depicts the cause for Max's demotion -- a moment of on-air grandstanding histrionics which humiliated network anchorman Kevin Hollander (Alan Alda). However, in a move which seems arbitrarily artificial, MAD CITY ends up trying to play it both ways by having Max be as slimy and manipulative as the system the film cries out against, and then do a sudden about-face as the plot requires and grow a conscience; it rings patently false.
Yet, although it's anticlimactic and often a little too heavy-handed, MAD CITY is always engaging and maintains interest. Well shot by Patrick Bloosier and paced well, the film unfolds in a logical progression which is predictable but ultimately inevitable.
It's helped by good performances from its cast. MAD CITY is essentially a showcase for Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Travolta, who are solid in their respective roles. I couldn't help but enjoy Mr. Hoffman's depiction of a character who discards objective reporting and puts a spin on his story with nonchalant efficiency, and Mr. Travolta, despite my best efforts to resist, is occasionally endearing through his character's bewilderment at the escalating situation in which he finds himself. He does tend to substitute the use of slang for obliviousness in his character here, much as he did for a remarkably similar character in another performance -- in Desmond Nakano's WHITE MAN'S BURDEN, Mr. Travolta played a lower-class, uneducated working man whom, after being laid off from a menial job, took his employer hostage. On the note of drawing parallels to previous work, the theme of chastising media manipulation isn't new to Mr. Hoffman, as can be witnessed in Stephen Frears' HERO (titled ACCIDENTAL HERO overseas).
Mia Kirshner has a lot of spunk as the protege videographer Laurie who falls under Max's wing and learns the tricks of the trade all-too-well, eventually becoming seduced with the glamour of 'making' the news. Ms. Danner is good in a small role as the museum director and lends dignity to the part, although most of the time she just gets to stand around. Mr. Alda is fine, although it's somewhat dubious to cast him as a network star anchorman -- he just doesn't have the gladhanding aura about him. William Atherton rehashes a variation of his most famous role from as unscrupulous reporter Richard Thornberg in DIE HARD (which, in its own way, was even more effective and less self-righteous in its skewering of the media) -- here, he plays a transparently-vacuous local anchorman.
While MAD CITY thankfully avoided overt parallels to the O.J. Simpson media circus, and was wrapped production before any references to the Princess Diana incident could be made, the handling of the race card in the film struck me as far too heavy-handed, and the montages of T-shirts being sold outside the museum and folk singers strumming odes to Sam pushed the film too far into satire. Granted, as can be seen from coverage outside the L.A. courtroom from 1996, it's not at all unbelievable, but the film would have been more effective and had a stronger impact had the emphasis on the carnival-like atmosphere which prevails along with media events been lessened.
MAD CITY can be neatly encapsulated with one particular sequence, in which Max chastises Laurie for aiding the wounded museum guard -- she can't film him and help him at the same time, and the former clearly takes precedent. It's a heartless sentiment, but the sequence, like the film itself, is neither quite as disturbing or shocking as it's intended to be, because we already know the film's angle. For a potentially potent story, MAD CITY, while eminently watchable, is curiously hollow.
- Alex Fung
email: aw220@freenet.carleton.ca
web : http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/
-- Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca) | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/ "I'll never forget you. You're too weird." - David Krumholtz, ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES
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