Review of Network (1976) by Rameshwar N — 19 Aug 2012

In a nutshell, this movie is about applying moral insensibilities to sensationalize mediocre stories and exploit weak individuals by over-ambitious executives to satisfy their ratings and egos. I am sure everyone must have had similar thoughts when watching one news story or the other these days but I didn't realize this had started way back then to even make a satire of a feature film.

Howard Beale, a legendary news anchor who has donned the seat for a certain network for a few decades has a mental meltdown on live television after knowing that his show is going to get canceled due to poor ratings. Diana Christensen, an ambitious and dynamic executive with a pragmatic view on morals looks at this disastrous incident in a positive way. She starts to campaign, lobby, manipulate and seduce her way to get this show going all the while paying little heed to the deteriorating mental condition of Howard.

Starts with a bang and that bang propels the movie for quite a bit helped by a standout performance from Faye Dunaway wimps out in the last leg as it loses steam by the end in comparison to the pace set rest of the movie. For most part, the movie has a very practical point of view on each subject it treads on.

Overall, the performances are terrific and the master of screenplay Sidney Lumet had things under control. Only problem is the script tries to wander a bit to venture partially into other subjects which does not have sufficient time or content.