5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Brilliant movie from a master-director
Date of Review: Jun 30, 2001
The Bottom Line: If you've had enough of all the Hollywood stereotypes, then watch Mad City- it will make you think, and you will not easily forget its message...
Constantin Costa-Gavras is the thinking man's film maker, known for hard hitting movies that take on the insulated world of American cultural Fordism- it is movies like 'Z', which exposed the callousness and brutality of the Greek dictatorship of the 60s, that have made Costa- Gavras a living legend. ( 'Z', alongwith 'Crouching Tiger...', and 'Life is Beautiful' are the only foreign language films ever to be nominated for Best Movie).
In Mad City, he takes on the global media industry, and shows us just how little we really know of the world of news- reporting.
John Travolta is a mild mannered, slightly slow security guard, who works at a museum and is fired by the Director. He returns to the museum with a gun and a bag of dynamite, to try to convince the Director to give him his job back. As the drama unfolds, he takes a number of school children hostage, along with Dustin Hoffman, who is a reporter with a local news network.
Hoffman begins reporting back to his network about the hostage situation, with the result that TV viewers know about the hostages even before the cops do!
Dustin Hoffman realises that this is probably the news-story of a lifetime, and he is anxious to show the "human side to it all"- portraying Travolta as Mr. Nice Guy. Public sympathy for Travolta rises rapidly, and this is when Big Brother- the national networks- step in.
To reveal more about the movie would be to spoil it for all of you who havent seen it yet.
Mad City exposes the global media industry and the way it works, revealing how the opinions and news that we accept as the gospel are simply chosen and interpreted as per the desires and requirements of the news channels. Costa- Gavras always makes movies with a strong and vehement leftist leaning, and he is unabashedly critical of the entire global capitalism movement. This movie will open your eyes to the reality that WYSIWYG- What You See Is What You Get- no longer applies when it comes to the power of the media. The reality is that networks like CNN have the power to mould and manipulate public opinion- that is truly disturbing.
After watching this movie, I could no longer laugh off the allegations I remember an Iraqi spokesman made during the bombing of Baghdad in early 99- " The attacks by the US aircraft are timed such that they are prime-time on CNN in the United States...". If George W. decides to reduce Baghdad to rubble once more, the relevance of the message of 'Mad City' will become even more startlingly evident.
