Broadcast News is a film that gives an insight into the daily goings on within a Washington based news company. The film focuses mainly on three individuals; 2 x male television reporters Tom Grunick and Aaron Altman (William Hurt and Albert Brooks respectively) and executive producer Jane Craig (Holly Hunter). With both men employed at the television company, an awkward love triangle develops when Jane falls for Tom and Aaron falls for Jane...
Sky Movies proudly boasts Broadcast News as being an Oscar Winning comedy and to be fair given the premise I didn't expect this to be in-your-face comedy and was looking for something that would prove to be suitably humourous. However, in my book there is a very fine line between subtle humour and almost non-existent humour and herein lies the problem with Broadcast News...
Maybe that's part of the problem in that I was sold on in being a comedy and in fairness whilst it does have amusing moments here and there it doesn't have enough funny moments to work as a comedy. OK so what does that leave us with? Well we do get an insight into the daily goings on of a news channel (mildly interesting, but not really strong enough to carry the majority of the film). Therefore if you take this aspect out of the film then you are merely left with a love triangle between the 3 leads - this takes up the bulk of the focus and sadly is the least interesting aspect of the entire film.
The only thing that partly redeems this film is Holly Hunter whose superb central performance really 'anchors' the film (obvious pun). She's the heart and soul of the film and really lights up the screen whenever she's in front of the camera. Her co-stars are all OK I suppose, but no-one else really makes the same impact as Hunter and they all fail to really make any kind of impression on the picture.
In Broadcast News though things end up going from bad to worse with a tagged on silly ending which added nothing and felt completely unnecessary. Still it seems that mine is a minority opinion (the critics seemed to love it), but for a film whose main focus seemed to be on a rather boring love triangle centring on 3 mostly uninteresting individuals then the end result is sadly a film that I found to be a fairly uninvolving experience.
Sky Movies proudly boasts Broadcast News as being an Oscar Winning comedy and to be fair given the premise I didn't expect this to be in-your-face comedy and was looking for something that would prove to be suitably humourous. However, in my book there is a very fine line between subtle humour and almost non-existent humour and herein lies the problem with Broadcast News...
Maybe that's part of the problem in that I was sold on in being a comedy and in fairness whilst it does have amusing moments here and there it doesn't have enough funny moments to work as a comedy. OK so what does that leave us with? Well we do get an insight into the daily goings on of a news channel (mildly interesting, but not really strong enough to carry the majority of the film). Therefore if you take this aspect out of the film then you are merely left with a love triangle between the 3 leads - this takes up the bulk of the focus and sadly is the least interesting aspect of the entire film.
The only thing that partly redeems this film is Holly Hunter whose superb central performance really 'anchors' the film (obvious pun). She's the heart and soul of the film and really lights up the screen whenever she's in front of the camera. Her co-stars are all OK I suppose, but no-one else really makes the same impact as Hunter and they all fail to really make any kind of impression on the picture.
In Broadcast News though things end up going from bad to worse with a tagged on silly ending which added nothing and felt completely unnecessary. Still it seems that mine is a minority opinion (the critics seemed to love it), but for a film whose main focus seemed to be on a rather boring love triangle centring on 3 mostly uninteresting individuals then the end result is sadly a film that I found to be a fairly uninvolving experience.