Taglines: One man will make a mistake. The other will make it a spectacle.
Mad City movie storyline. After being sacked from his job at a museum, former security guard Sam Baily returns to the place with a shotgun and dynamite and takes his former boss Mrs. Banks and a number of children (at the museum on a school field trip) as hostages. Local television journalist Max Brackett is in the museum using the restroom after an interview with the curator about financial difficulties. He becomes directly involved in the hostage situation, acting as Baily’s intermediary to the outside world and the police.
Baily accidentally shoots a friend of his, Cliff, who’s still working there as a security guard, sending him to the hospital. He later fires the weapon again, frightening the children and becoming increasingly unstable as he takes caffeine pills to stay awake. Along with the young intern coworker Laurie among the growing media circus outside, Brackett reports the inside story exclusively on television, reviving his career. By being free to come and go, he negotiates with a national network and its star news anchorman, Kevin Hollander, with whom Brackett has an unhappy history.
Baily wants the police to let him return home to his wife and kids, refusing to accept that he’s going to jail. Brackett, on the other hand, makes a deal rather than let Hollander have the story, prompting Hollander to publicly accuse Brackett of prolonging the crisis and endangering the children. Laurie then betrays Brackett, proving that, like him, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to further her own career.
Mad City is a 1997 American thriller film directed by Costa-Gavras, written by Tom Matthews based on a story by Matthews and Eric Williams, and starring Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta, with a supporting cast featuring Mia Kirshner, Alan Alda, Blythe Danner, Ted Levine, Raymond J. Barry, and Larry King. This is Costa-Gavras’ first English-language film since Music Box (1989). The title comes from a nickname of Madison, Wisconsin, where it originally was going to be set, and was used for its multiple meanings.
Mad City (1997)
Directed by: Costa-Gavras
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Alan Alda, Mia Kirshner, Ted Levine, Robert Prosky, Blythe Danner, William Atherton, Tammy Lauren, Lucinda Jenney
Screenplay by: Tom Matthews
Production Design by: Catherine Hardwicke
Cinematography by: Patrick Blossier
Film Editing by: Françoise Bonnot
Costume Design by: Deborah Nadoolman
Set Decoration by: Jan Pascale
Art Direction by: Ben Morahan
Music by: Thomas Newman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for depiction of a hostage situation, including violence and brief language.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: November 7, 1997
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