As a once-prominent news station starts to cut back on resources, including their head anchor, due to low ratings, the anchor announces to commit suicide on his final broadcast. This spirals off a media circus that spikes the station's ratings and resurrects their lineup for fresher programming under the fastidious eyes of execs Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall. Ultimately, the new life for the network becomes a beast that no one in the station realizes they really know how to tame. Aside from the aformentioned valid social commentary, Network is also a complex drama that personifies the trend in the media with it's characters. From the kings of the "good-'ol-days", with William Holden, to the vapid, but "hip-and-fresh" Faye Dunaway. Network is not only outstandingly acted, but written in mind that we're not only telling a story abut characters in broadcast news, we're telling a story about characters representing the evolution of it as well.
Despite all my kudos, I will say that Network can be a little slow at times with it's heavily engrossing subplots. The ending is also somewhat anticlimactic, without any tangible resolution towards some of the major characters. Obviously, this was intentional, but a touch nihilistic, which seemed random to me in the context of the story. Otherwise, in this day and age with a bad economy, senseless violence, and technophilia, Network definitely deserves revisiting by everyone.
8/10
Peace,
- Jon
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