`MAD CITY' PAINTS PORTRAIT OF MANIPULATIVE NEWS MEDIA.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

Slow down the presses. Stay tuned for a special bulletin, after the commercial break.

The media can be irresponsible, sometimes even exploitative.

Alert the media. If you can get their attention.

It's not that ``Mad City'' is particularly bad or anything, although it is one of those late-model Costa-Gavras social thrillers, like ``Music Box,'' with a too-obvious moral dilemma that's nonetheless murkily resolved.

No, it's just that after Diana and O.J. and Richard Jewell, to say nothing of ``Network'' and ``Absence of Malice'' and ``Broadcast News,'' it's no revelation that the sensationalizing of reporting favors showbiz over honest informing.

Indeed, the situation does not seem to get any better no matter how many movies are made criticizing it. The films themselves, however, keep looking more and more like old news.

Here's another flash: The broadcast business attracts some pretty slippery characters. Few are better oiled than Max Brackett (Dustin Hoffman), a guy who fudges ethical lines so instinctively you wonder how he blew a network job and wound up stuck at a no-name affiliate in a midsize California market called Madeline. Though his specialty is ambush interviews of crooked bigwigs, Max keeps getting reassigned to boring junk like downsizing at the local museum.

After interviewing a snooty curator (Blythe Danner), Max is in the men's room when the stupidest ex-museum guard on Earth, Sam Baily (John Travolta), tries to lobby for his job back. His strategy involves a shotgun and a bag of dynamite.

In quick order, an active guard is accidentally shot, Sam seals the building off with a class of schoolkids inside, and it's a good thing Max is in the bathroom because he can barely control his excitement. Quickly discovered, Max spends the rest of the movie gaining Sam's trust and stage-managing the escalating event story of the year.

As the dim, increasingly desperate gunman develops his own half-baked media savvy, though, Max's control of the situation weakens. His ticket back to the network big time is also threatened by the arrival of nightly news anchor Kevin Hollander (who else but Alan Alda), a power-playing snake who's never forgiven Max for an uncharacteristic on-air display of conscience.

As the inevitable Jay Leno and Larry King weigh in (talk about a real media scandal: when are these guys going to stop playing themselves in movies?), Max's biggest problem emerges, and it's that pesky conscience of his. He starts sympathizing with the clueless idiot he's exploiting.

The real model for ``Mad City'' is Billy Wilder's ``The Big Carnival'' (also known as ``Ace in the Hole'') from 1951. That film was about an unscrupulous newspaper reporter, but the easy way in which its issues transfer to the electronic age are an indication of just how little new there is to say about journalistic ethics.

Speaking of ``seen that,'' Hoffman is so experienced at playing Achilles'-heeled operators (``Kramer vs. Kramer,'' ``Tootsie,'' ``Billy Bathgate'') that, even when he does it with the expert nuance evident here, he doesn't exactly project the thrill of a great actor exploring fresh behavior.

As for Travolta, he's good at finding the humor and pathos in Sam's predicament, but he's done this well-meaning, underclass dope thing before, too, in ``White Man's Burden.'' It's an entertaining, movie-star performance, but Travolta rarely gets you past the fact that you're watching a lucky actor rather than a luckless schlub.

Costa-Gavras directs in his usual swift, clean manner. What happens, how it's spun and how it affects the power relationships both inside the museum and on the air is presented with impressive clarity.

As for analysis, though, ``Mad City'' is about as lucid as ``The McLaughlin Group.'' When it comes to meaning, the movie doesn't provide much more than your average, 30-second news brief.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Mad City'' (PG-13; language, violence, children in jeopardy).

The stars: Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Alan Alda and Mia Kirshner.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Costa-Gavras. Written by Tom Matthews and Eric Williams. Produced by Arnold and Anne Kopelson. Released by Warner Bros.

Running time: One hour, 54 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two and One Half Stars.

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Photo

Photo: John Travolta's ex-guard takes over a museum to get his job back in ``Mad City.''