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Mad City
*
Cinema
Releases - June 26,
1998
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Directed by Costa-Gavras. Written by Tom Matthews. Starring
John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman,
Mia Kirshner, Alan Alda, Robert Prosky, Blythe Danner, William
Atherton.
I don't know the story behind "Mad
City", but I would like to. I want to know who the writer Tom Matthews
is, and if he really is as stupid as his screenplay suggests. I want to know
who director Costa-Gavras thinks he is, and why he didn't walk off this project.
I want to know how talented actors got involved in this dross.
The film stars Dustin Hoffman as a TV reporter,
Max Brackett who goes to report on the underfunding of a crappy museum.
While Max is in the bathroom, a man called Sam, played by John Travolta,
locks the building and starts waving a shotgun around, saying he needs to
speak to the manager (Blythe Danner) about being fired from his job as a
security guard. Since there is a crowd of schoolkids in the museum, and another
guard has been accidentally shot, Travolta holds the visitors hostage in
the museum, not knowing what to do. The situation becomes a media circus,
with Hoffman in the middle.
This material is pointless and ridiculous. At
first, the film spends some time in the newsroom. It seems to think it is
a sharp, knowing take on the media. It is not. It is risible and moronic.
We get some nonsensical dialogue, and the film seems to think that nonsensical
dialogue is the same thing as clever satire. But the writer does not humiliate
anyone but himself. Films like "Network", "The Paper" and "Broadcast News"
had a sense of authenticity about their view of a newsroom. "Mad City" has
the believability of a tabloid newspaper. It has the same attitude as Geraldo
-- it thinks that it's challenging and brilliant, but it's
laughable.
The media circus itself makes little sense, either.
Yes, the media and public are infatuated with violence, but huge national
interest does not appear from some nobody holding a boring museum
hostage.
The story sucks. I had no interest in the competition
between Hoffman and a rival reporter played by Alan Alda, and didn't care
what happened in the hostage situation. It is not developed at all. We just
see Travolta milling around, wondering "What am I gonna do??". There is no
interesting relationship developed, like in the brilliant "Dog Day Afternoon",
nor does the situation does get tense. I didn't care about any of the characters.
When one got killed off, I felt angry, yes, but not because I cared, but
because the film was trying to find a cheap way to get our sympathies. I
wouldn't have cared if all the children had been blown up. Travolta plays
Sam as a retarded man, so the character was bloody annoying. The racial subplot
was another laughable aspect of "Mad City".
The film is dead. The plot is predictable when
it wants to twist and I felt bored by everything else. The editing does little
to liven it up, not in the structure or technicalities. There is hardly any
music in the film. There is no memorable dialogue. The film drifts around,
forgetting about what it's in the middle of. It has no moral point of view
on whether it is supporting retarded Sam or the federal agents who are itching
to shoot him. It's a mad, mad mess.
John Travolta is probably being offered tons of
good material nowadays, and I hope he makes up for this rubbish. Dustin Hoffman
will probably recover from this film quickly too, having been Oscar-nominated
for "Wag the Dog", an upcoming satire which, from what I've seen, will probably
work a lot better than this one. "Mad City" is a terrible movie. What can
you say about a film when its most interesting scene is due to a man conversing
with his penis?
COPYRIGHT©
1998 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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