Word: brackett
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Best Foreign Film), taps into the nation's anxiety about the growing influence of the media--a strategy that is certain to pay off in the wake of the Princess Diana tragedy. Gavras is particularly concerned with the "personal responsibility" of grandstanding journalists like Mad City's protagonist, Max Brackett, who walks the fine line between reporting the news and creating the news. "We all move the line," Gavras says, "but when we cross the line, that's when we get into trouble." Unfortunately, the righteous, sermonic Mad City can't seem to resist crossing that line itself. The film...
...aligns two distinct personalities--the hardened reporter and the simple, down-on-his-luck everyman--and pits them both against the senseless juggernaut of popular culture. "This movie is about people," Gavras says, and the people who star in it are indeed its finest assets. Dustin Hoffman plays Max Brackett, a hotshot national news reporter who has been demoted to a backwater affiliate station in northern California after a mysterious incident involving celebrity anchor Kevin Hollander (Alan Alda, in a stonier version of the egomaniacal media mogul he played in Crimes and Misdemeanors). The worldly, ambitious Brackett is earger...
...rest of the film follows Brackett as the strategically escalates the crisis to suit both his interests and (he thinks) those of the hapless Baily, who pulled the stunt only as a last-ditch effort to recover his job at the museum, and is bewildered by the chubbub he has created. Predictably, Brackett loses control of the media circus (complete with clowns, in this version), and the situation spins swiftly towards disaster...
...talented actor; Hoffman delivers it quietly, almost swallowing the words, and the effect is chilling. To its own detriment, the script fails to learn from his example. Writers Tom Matthews and Eric Williams, journalists themselves, cannot resist hammering home their message. "I don't want to cross the line," Brackett tells his boss; Lou, at the beginning of the movie, "I just want to move the line." Cheesy, perhaps, but certainly forgivable in terms of moviespeak. But later, as the film's climax approaches, the writers are apparently worried we may have forgotten their little zinger. "How's moving...
...Banks and Mia Kirshner's doe-eyed intern, Lori, are disappointingly one-dimensional. Kirshner's character is particularly objectionable: we watch as she shifts her allegiance from one powerful man to another, vamping whoever appears to be in charge. She even seems amenable to a sexual relationship with Brackett if it will advance her career. Gavras claims she represents "the loss of innocence," but her bovine willingness to be seduced by the powerful reporters around her is simply distasteful and sexist in the extreme...