Dustin Hoffman sure has been in his share of stinkers lately. This movie proceeded the rather poor Wag the Dog into, and out of, theaters late last year. Trying, in a somewhat more controlled way than Wag the Dog, to be a film that teaches the audience that the media is bad and has too much control over how things are perceived by the general public, Mad City ultimately doesn’t say much of anything.
Max Brackett (Dustin Hoffman) is a TV reporter who’s been demoted to a small market station after an embarrassing incident occurred between himself and Kevin Hollander (Alan Alda) on live TV. Brackett tries big-city TV news tactics for a station that’s just not ready for them. When he’s assigned to a fluff story at a local museum as punishment, Brackett finds himself in the middle of a big-city type story anyway. Brackett is trapped in a bathroom as a disgruntled museum security guard, Sam Baily (John Travolta), confronts his former boss with a shotgun in an attempt get his job back. Brackett scoops everyone as the situation boils over into a hostage situation. When Brackett is discovered in the bathroom, he begins to instruct Baily, who accidentally shoots another security guard, about how to handle things and possibly avoid a long jail sentence. The secret, according to Brackett, is in how one handles the media.
And so begins the tale of Max and Sam as they negotiate with the outside world and spin doctor Sam’s attempt to get his job back into a national obsession. The script, written by Eric Williams, from a story by Tom Matthews, is genuinely smart in places. The problem is that the main characters aren’t particularly interesting or believable. The audience is asked to sympathize with Baily, but he comes off like a Forrest Gump-like lunkhead, who is nice to children and animals, but short-tempered and full of rage. Max Brackett, I believe, is supposed to be viewed as a reporter with morals, but he’s too slick and slimy for that persona to take hold. The heart of the movie is in the right place, but is too dependent on characters that don’t seem to uphold their own supposed beliefs.
While the movie tries to be likeable and fun, as well as thought provoking, it manages only to be mildly entertaining and instantly forgettable. Just like Wag the Dog, another media-oriented film, this movie fails because it just isn’t as effective as it could be.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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