NETWORK??

I'd guess that the director/writer DID hope for comparisons to "Network," a widely-acclaimed, award-winning movie.

A major problem with "Live!" as compared with "Network": the earlier movie depicted an exaggerated version of actual trends and actual human behavior. But the 2007 "Live!" is based on flawed psychology.

Most people DO enjoy violence (whether they admit it or not)...but they want to feel good about watching it. One of two rationales must be present: righteousness, or a chance to learn.

Under 'righteousness' would fall most of the history of pre-TV violence entertainment: public executions being the most obvious. The objects of the violence must 'deserve' it, so that the viewer can feel righteous about seeing them suffer and die. In "Live!" those who might die were, apart from the one contestant offered as a sort of straw-villain (Abalone), people who didn't seem to deserve death.

A chance to learn accounts for the other major rationale that lets us enjoy depictions of violence: think of the popularity through the centuries of displays considered to be Sport, from gladiatorial combat to boxing. Watching these, we pick up (or believe we're picking up) information that could help us survive should we find ourselves in a situation in which we must fight. Also in this category: the appeal of stories such as "The Hunger Games" and its precursors (from Robert Shockley's "The Prize of Peril" to "Battle Royale"). We enjoy reading and viewing stories based on "kill or be killed" because on some level, we know we may pick up some survival tips.

But with Russian Roulette among generally-nice people, we have neither rationale. Viewers of a show such as this movie proposes would be a major hit wouldn't get to feel Righteous, because the contestants are (generally) likeable. And the viewers wouldn't get to enjoy the prospect of learning survival tips, because there's no strategy and no skill involved in Russian Roulette.

So the premise of "Live!" simply rings false.

We don't believe that the show would be, as the movie claims, a hit. With "Network," on the other hand, it was all too easy to believe that the revamped news show (gussied up with astrology and bank-robbery footage and an unstable anchor) would be a hit--the psychology is believable.