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Mad City

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 23 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 1 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Tom Matthews (also story)
Eric Williams
Directed by: Costa-Gavras
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 7, 1997
DVD: June 1, 2004
Running Time: 114 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for depiction of a hostage situation, including violence and brief language
Starring John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Mia Kirshner, Alan Alda, Robert Prosky, Blythe Danner, William Atherton, and Ted Levine
A network television journalist is banished to a backwater station for bad behavior on the job. He meets a security guard who got laid off and the two form a bond of mutual need which changes the course of their lives forever. (Warner Bros.)
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
But Mr. Costa-Gavras, a galvanizing filmmaker working with a splendid cast, is able to tell this story in style.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Influenced by Billy Wilder's classic "Ace in the Hole," this dark comedy-drama rambles on too long and strains credibility at times.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Michael Sragow
Actually, that shift in moral perspective is the freshest thing in the movie--it keeps the action absorbing even when the script keeps hammering us with lessons about the commercial exploitation of the news and TV audiences' craziness and gullibility.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Director Costa-Gavras packs a whole lotta hectoring into this high-strung morality play about the broadcast media's culpability in the escalation of human drama into camera-ready Greek tragedy.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Unfortunately, Mad City merely pumps up the volume on material that has already been picked clean. [07Nov1997 Pg 74]
Empire Jake Hamilton
Yet in trying to be honest and non-conformist, Mad City does the most dishonest thing imaginable: it conforms to Hollywood routine.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
It's always at least a little disingenuous to attack the medium that's your bread and butter; this media-bashing movie tries to get around the problem by restricting its critique to television, specifically the news.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
It has, at times, a loopy, edgy humor and moments of genuinely affecting pathos. But somehow the combination doesn't add up to anything.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Not for a minute is Mad City anything less than entertaining. Yet it becomes frustrating nonetheless. Its ideas gradually seem to be at cross-purposes -- not complex, not tantalizingly ambiguous, but tangled and undefined.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Mad City might have been more fun if it had added that extra spin--if it had attacked the audience as well as the perpetrators. As it is, it's too predictable.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The absence of originality and inspiration isn't Mad City's only problem -- it also suffers from a shocking lack of subtlety.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
And veteran director Costa-Gavras, whose early work ("Z", "State Of Siege", "Missing") proves that he's no stranger to sociopolitical complexities, might well have been the man to make it. But not from this script -- it starts off as puerile and then regresses.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
The great, and given Costa-Gavras' previous m.o., inevitable irony of Mad City is that even as it condemns the media for exploiting the situation, it's busy doing the very same.
Read Full Review >Variety Emanuel Levy
In actuality, however, what unfolds onscreen is a simplistic and obvious expose about the manipulative power of the news media that by now is so familiar that its cynical perspective is not likely to upset or provoke anyone.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
A blanket indictment like this has to be either satirically trenchant or a roundhouse punch to the gut. Tom Matthews' script takes a mushy middle ground, and the result seems less mad than just a bit addled or hacked off. [07Nov1997 Pg08.D]
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Clearly, there's the germ of a good -- potentially even great -- movie here, but it's thoroughly smothered by a pair of lazy, self-congratulatory star turns by Hoffman and Travolta.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
As delivered by the politically inclined international filmmaker Costa-Gavras ("Z," "The Music Box"), Mad City's oversimplification of the ethical issues is bound to annoy those with any first-hand knowledge of the news dissemination process and disappoint others who've come for the promise of a city whipped into a "mad as hell" frenzy.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's a movie of great dynamism and energy, but very little discipline. It probes issues but it never really thinks about them. It seems smart, but it's dumb.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Hoffman and Travolta are both good, but this toothless satire does little to justify their performances.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Mad City is an example of how enervated polemical filmmaking can become when its plot loses contact with plausibility.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser
My question is, why has director Costa-Gavras taken it upon himself to dissect American cultural foibles when he has so clearly proven himself unequipped for the job?
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Mad City is for those who haven't seen enough movies about hostage situations. It's also for those who haven't seen enough ponderous movies about media exploitation, or Dustin Hoffman's ongoing reliance on muttery method acting.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Michael L. gave it an8:
This is a very well realized and provacative film about the media's involvement in glorifying crime and criminals. Yes, we've heard this beef before, but rarely so articulately and balanced. The lines between good and bad, fair and unfair are masterfully blurred so the viewer is never quite sure whom to root for. I was moved, impressed, and challenged by this film, and applaud Costa Garvas, and his fine cast. Travolta is better than I've ever seen him, Hoffman is at his quirky best. Danner turns a cardboard character into a human being, and Alan Alda continues to do smarmy better than anyone! Ignore the critics--this is a first-rate film.
