UNLIKE OTHERS HERE I'M WARNING OF POSSIBLE SPOILERS ***** COME ON GUYS, YOU ARE ALL FRIGG'N TALKING ABOUT THE ENDING HERE; BE CONSIDERATE...! GEEZ...
Yeah, I think you nailed it pretty much. I was trying to figure out the same thing as to why it left me kind of so-so at the end. Sure, the whole POINT I guess was how self-serving the media is, okay, okay, we get it. So, I feel the crux of the matter is that CINEMATICALLY you have all this momentum built up really casting Travolta's character in a sympathetic light and then you see all the manipulation where even Hoffman's character ALMOST succumbs to the temptation, so was it REALLY necessary then to go and hit us all over the head with the OBVIOUS 'Oh let's end it so everyone KNOWS how horrible the media is by having him die' and then the rather ANTIclimactic last few moments with Dustin Hoffman wandering around.
To me personally it started to become, again CINEMATICALLY, disingenuous at the point Larry King is interviewing him and Travolta's character begins to change. With all that has been beautifully built up to that point, it just doesn't come across as real. And then by the end we see it basically has been used as a plot device to get us to the 2 dimensional OBVIOUS ending.
Rather, in my lowly and wretched opinion, Costa Gravas (and more so the script, really) had already nicely driven the point home, mainly with the powering in of Alan Alda's character and as I mentioned before the effect on Hoffman's character. BUT, at that exact point the audience is all nicely convinced of the main idea here... ...sooooooo then, we are now waiting for Hoffman somehow by (and here's the point) ***DOING THE RIGHT THING*** will then resolve the situation and overcome the evil media power people and then (here is the 2nd MORE IMPORTANT point) BLOODY USE that then to EXPOSE what has been going on.
You see...???
Now, which direction would have ultimately been more powerful, moving, uplifting (WHILE still clearly making it's point) and MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more satisfying??? USING the situation not only to redeem Hoffman's and Travolta's character, but ALSO to then rub it in the faces of Alda's character, the media, the people in general what REALLY happened...??? OR just do as they did and let the guy kill himself and have Hoffman wandering around saying quite anticlamactically 'We killed him'? Like 'DUH'...
Just my take on it strictly from a movie making point of view...
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