Mad City

Reporter Max Brackett, who has spend the past two years in the wilderness, following an altercation with the powerful, cynical, Kevin Hollander, is told to go cover a story about budget cuts at a local museum with an intern, Laurie Callaghan.

Max does his piece with the museum owner, Mrs Banks, and then finds himself in the middle of a hostage situation that could be his ticket back to the big time. Disgruntled ex-employee Sam Baily returns to his former workplace and, after accidentally wounding the other guard, impulsively decides to take Mrs Banks and the school group she was showing round the museum hostage.

Mad City is a solid piece of Hollywood drama that never quite manages to grab one's attention, or imagination. It's hard to pin the blame on anyone for this.

Writers Tom Matthews and Eric Williams offer an informed, if predictable, expose of media manipulation and (a)morality.

Director Costa-Gavras - best known for more overtly political pieces, like Z and Missing - helms competently if uninspiringly. While conveying the manipulative powers of editing, he fails to reflexively apply this critical approach to the (de)construction of Mad City itself.

Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta make their characters - the cynical reporter, unable to rid himself of his conscience, and the dim-witted everyman, pushed to desperate measures by desperate times - believable and are well supported by the likes of Alan Alda, as the oily TV anchorman, and Mia Kirshner, as the intern, eager to advance her own fledgling career.

The problem is that everything in Mad City has been seen before, and better, elsewhere. The film feels formulaic and derivative, a hybrid of Dog Day Afternoon and Network with a touch of Falling Down thrown in for good measure.

Not bad, not good. Just average.