Mad City Critic Reviews

But Mr. Costa-Gavras, a galvanizing filmmaker working with a splendid cast, is able to tell this story in style.Read the full review

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 the full review

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]Read the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

The absence of originality and inspiration isn't Mad City's only problem -- it also suffers from a shocking lack of subtlety.Read the full review

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 the full review

Hoffman and Travolta are both good, but this toothless satire does little to justify their performances.Read the full review