Mad City

A normal guy blows his top, and a news reporter turns into a national spectacle.

• Director:Costa-Gavras
• Genre:Drama / Thriller
• Runtime:110 minutes

Cast

Dustin Hoffman : Max Brackett
John Travolta : Sam Baily
Alan Alda : Kevin Hollander
Mia Kirshner : Laurie Callahan
Robert Prosky : Lou Potts

Sam Baily gets laid off from his job as a museum security guard. In anger, he comes armed with weapons and explosives and takes his boss Mrs. Banks and a number of children (at the museum on a school field trip) as hostages.

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 an ex-colleague, sending him to the hospital, and inadvertently fires a gun again, frightening the children and becoming more and more unstable. Brackett, meanwhile, along with a young intern, Laurie, reports the story exclusively on television as Brackett manipulates it to revive his career. He negotiates with a national network and its star news anchorman, Kevin Hollander, with whom Brackett has an unhappy history.

Baily, meanwhile, tries to persuade the police to let him return home to his wife and kids. But by prolonging the crisis and endangering the children, he and Brackett continue to make the situation worse until it finally explodes. Read more

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