Nowadays we'd call this out as Oscar bait. Just a very safe office comedy/drama that makes some incredibly obvious observations about the world of television. It's decently funny, but I never felt challenged or emotionally stimulated. It continuously keeps circling back to this theme of '(dumb) anger and sensationalism go hand in hand with commercial (news) media', but it never digs deeper so that it goes to a more memorable, interesting place. Instead, it often falls back on this less interesting romance subplot if Lumet doesn't quite know where to take the story next (although to be fair: that becomes more interesting as the film goes along). The characters, dialogue and acting are all fine. Sometimes it gets really showy and loud, but given that we're dealing with satire and the television world here, that still rings true to me. I liked the minor postmodern touches in the writing, those feel like the film's sharpest moments. However, I don't feel like Lumet is at his sharpest behind the camera here. Lots of flat lighting, simple shot-reverse shot set-ups. way too many close-ups, only a couple of scenes with interesting blocking; it's kind of a letdown compared to the much better direction in _Dog Day Afternoon_ is. Overall, while I can see why people like this, I do question its classic status. If Adam McKay directed this, film Twitter would claim it's the worst thing ever made. It's not, of course, but besides a couple of really good moments this is just fine.

6/10