Max Brackett used to be the best network reporters when he blew up on national television. Forced to work in tiny Madeline, California, he didn't think he would ever get his old job back. Until he stepped in to the local Museum of Natural History.

There, Sam Baily walked in and demanded for his old job back, at gunpoint. His intentions were unhostile, his plans honest: he didn't want to hurt anybody... he just wanted people to listen.

And after accidentally shooting the museum guard, his hostage situation turned into a nationwide event, exactly what Max needed to boost his career. With police, parents, and reporters on the outside, Sam, children, and Max on the inside, the hostage situation quickly turns into a war of conflicting opinions and greed. Max manipulates the story on both sides to boost his career, the police try to provoke Sam so they can take him down, and everyone else is forced to make a decision on their own.

But when bigger powers want to destroy the basically innocent Sam, Max realizes that he has to take sides, or Sam will die.

MOVIE REVIEW

John Travolta is Sam, and, just like the name, he is a simple man. No more than his character in Phenomenon, John Travolta plays the average man who's just gone a little over the edge. He's not hostile, but he's confused, and a little angry. But Mad City is not a hostage story. It is a story of the fundamentals of the media, and the lengths people go to twist the truth.
Read our Mad City movie review »