Our Flick of the Week is the maddeningly disappointing “Mad City,” in which heavy-duty stars John Travolta and Dustin Hoffman perform in an utterly unoriginal satire of tabloid media and stunt TV news. This is old material that was better handled more than 20 years ago in such excellent films as “Network” and “Dog Day Afternoon.”
Travolta plays a museum worker who is being let go. He flies off the handle in response to being trifled with and ends up unintentionally wounding a fellow worker and friend, a guard. The police overreact because there are children in the museum at the time, and the result is that Travolta is branded as a hostage-taker and exploited by a TV reporter (Hoffman) with his own private agenda — his own career, of course.
Based on that bare-bones premise, you can anticipate what follows. Hoffman manipulates Travolta, battles colleagues who are jealous of his access to the story, and both he and Travolta dodge police bosses who continue to freak out.
More Top Picks Best Travel Systems For Newborns
Travolta’s characterization is uninspired; he plays little more than a sweet sad sack. Hoffman is such a fine observer as an actor that he has all of the details of TV reporting just right. But that is hardly enough to recommend “Mad City.” Rated PG-13. (star) (star)
– BEAN. The marvelous English physical comedian Rowan Atkinson displays considerable talent in this silly piece about a klutz in an art gallery. Bean is an all-thumbs museum guard who is so annoying that his bosses leap to send him away on a mission to a new American museum that is unveiling a prize acquisition, Whistler’s “Portrait of a Mother.” Bean is misrepresented to the museum as an art expert, and, of course, he trashes the painting. It’s all very funny stuff. PG-13. (star) (star) (star)
– STARSHIP TROOPERS. A high-energy, high-tech satire on the joy of combat as we follow a bunch of college-age students who volunteer to fight giant outer-space bugs that threaten Earth. The war sequences, of course, threaten to blow every idea off the screen, but a series on jingoistic TV ads manages to break through all of the visual and aural noise to separate this action picture from standard Hollywood fare. Also, the film’s giant bugs are a gas. R. (star) (star) (star)
– = New this week