When Mad City raises questions about media ethics, it does so in a more reasoned manner -- not in the frantic fingerpointing, celebrity-glutted way in which Diana's death was met. So truth is stranger than fiction, but Mad City scores points by presenting its message in a way that makes viewers really consider what is right and wrong and how their opinions are shaped by the media.

Hoffman plays Max Brackett, an arrogant TV reporter, whose previous, impulsive antics forced him from network news to a local affiliate. Anxious to return to the big leagues, Brackett ignores the advice of latest boss (to leave the hardcore investigative stuff to the network big boys) by insisting on exposing the dirt on a banker. For punishment, his boss sends Brackett out to do a puff piece on a museum. Once there, Brackett overlooks the exhibit and visiting schoolchildren in favor of asking the curator, Mrs. Banks (Blythe Danner), about the museum's layoffs. Brackett's piece is cut off by the show's anchor, who asks if those are dinosaurs behind him.

As luck would have it, Sam Baily (John Travolta), a just-fired security guard, enters the museum with a gun and a bag full of dynamite. Baily wants his job back, but it's Brackett who sees that this is his chance to get what he wants -- a juicy story.

After Baily accidentally shoots a guard, there's no going back. Brackett takes over and becomes, in essence, Baily's publicist. The release of one hostage, he negotiates with the police, means that Baily gets time on-air in an exclusive interview with Brackett. As this is playing out, Brackett's old nemesis, network anchor Kevin Hollander (Alan Alda), demands that he be sent on location to steal Brackett's thunder.

Directed by Constantin Costa-Gavras and written by Tom Matthews and Eric Williams, Mad City takes aim at television news. Targets it hits include the event graphics, in this case "Inside the Siege," and the "how do you feel?" questions to the victims. Further, it shows how reporters can be weasels. When a story's hot, it's the only game in town. The trick to scoring audiences is giving them a fresh angle. Brackett is the one holding the cards. His approach is to paint Baily -- through well-chosen interviews and editing -- in a sympathetic light. To gain Baily's cooperation, Brackett tells him that the viewing public is his jury pool. The only choice that the other stations and Hollander have is to poke holes in Brackett's work. None of them gives the whole story.

Hoffman gives a good performance as the scruffy Brackett -- a man so caught up in getting the story, doing a good job, that he can't see that his unwillingness to play along with the station's demands undermines everything he does. Travolta's thick-headed character (we know he's dumb because of his pointy sideburns) is ripe for manipulation. This isn't one of Travolta's flashier roles; he mostly hovers. But in this context, it works well, since, as Mad City demonstrates, the subject of the story often fades into background so that only the spectacle is news.