Instead of gloriously loopy Howard Beale, we have Robert Hawkins (Kelsey Grammer, in a stretch, playing a local media celebrity), who is guilty by reason of sanity, knowing exactly what he does to fuel the violence and celebrity driven ratings of his television program, Top Story. His ratings to a degree (perhaps the degree at which blood coagulates) depend upon his symbiotic relationship with ace (read media-hounded) homicide detective Eddie Fleming (Robert DeNiro, basically playing DeNiro), whose number one fan or student is Jordy Warsaw (Ed Burns, of Saving Private Ryan).

     Then, there is the other odd couple, Czech criminal Emil (Karel Roden) and Russian movie buff, Oleg (Oleg Taktarov), who calls himself Frank Capra—and that’s as close as this film gets to humor. After Oleg steals a video camera, Emil, who has come to America to collect on an old debt (in one of the films many moments of convoluted plotting), hatches a plan to photograph a murder and capitalize (well, they aren’t socialists anymore) on the notoriety. So, are we in Being There or Truman Show land yet?

     Not exactly. That’s just one of the movies you see in this weird double-feature-in-one. But, instead of the sparkling imagination and witty satire of such films, we get heavy-handed preaching about… Well, about pandering, sensationalistic, blood-drenched media products like this one, or, at least, the other half of this one.

     There’s nothing wrong with a film working on more than one level or more than one angle, but this film works against itself. Granted, the car chases and violence are stunningly photographed, and New York has rarely looked more dreary and seedy. But the old ultra-violence wins out, even as the film cranks up its shrillest liberal pretensions to the contrary.

     And all of this or these in a week with yet another killing in a school, leading one side of the argument to call for more gun control and the other for more movie control and nobody any closer to any wisdom than this film is… or any more united.   Keep your feet dry (walk around the blood on the sidewalk) and your heart full of noble thoughts, not that you can find many of those in the movies we’re having dished up lately.