Powerful satirical drama that is as relevant today as it was 35 years ago.
The plot:
Howard Beale is a successful news anchorman who, one day, decides he has had just about enough, thank you, of spouting the news fed to him via autocue. Instead, he states that, the following Tuesday, he will shoot himself dead, live on the programme.
Taken off air, soon the network realise they are onto a ratings winner.
Reimagined as a sort of TV evangelist, proclaiming the truths that the American public want to hear, the network executives exploit his spoutings even as he descends into chronic psychological illness until, having created the monster, the time eventually comes to shut him up once and for all.
Powerful, with a savage edge of social commentary, this is pertinent even now, in the current world of celebrity obsession.
With cameras pointed at every celebrity going into meltdown - Britney Spears, Tiger Woods, Jade Goody, Kerry Katona - delighting in their plight as the ratings climb and newspaper sales rocket.
Though dated visually, the message still resonates and, save for the occasional soap opera moment - two executives conduct an illicit affair which quickly becomes tiresome, albeit an affair designed to showcase the fact that, increasingly, people view their lives as if playing out scenes in a TV show or movie - this is a towering, intelligent, important movie that anyone interested in media and/or current affairs really should digest.
Excellent stuff.
4 out of 5
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