Network 1976
I’ve always heard a lot about this movie and the line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” is so famous I figured I needed to see the source. Plus it was on AFI’s list of the top 100 movies of all time.
I really don’t know what they were smoking. I have a real problem with movies with a social or political message because I don’t go to the movies for that. If a movie has a moral then great, but don’t beat me over the head with your beliefs. This movie is just a bunch of people yelling at each other and throwing the words “damn", “hell,” and “shit” around as if this had never been done before. None of the characters are horribly redeeming and yet there’s a love story in there and one of the people is completely incapable of love and the other is just a dirty old man. It is absolutely unbelievable to me that such pop drivel could garner so many Oscars and so much respect.
I think the biggest flaw with the movie is that the arch-villain is corporate television, which is now just an accepted fact of life. People today have stopped blaming television for the ills of society. We now have a more mature view of television. Sure there is still Jerry Springer, but everyone knows that it’s crap. We don’t indict the whole medium because of one show or even a whole nightly lineup. And we sure don’t think it really has any effect on society as a whole.
This movie may have been poignant, may have been cutting edge, at the time it was made but I think now it is as irrelevant and as pointless as Mrs. Brady’s pant suits. Even the “mad as hell” part was a big disappointment. I have to lump this in with other trite period pieces that have also garnered more respect than they deserve like The Apartment and Midnight Cowboy. Perhaps this movie is The Titanic or The Forrest Gump of of 20 years ago: a movie that makes a big splash but not a lasting one.
Written: 26 Dec 1998