Here we have Sidney Lumet at his best. "Network" follows a struggling television network as it goes to drastic and immoral measures to get ratings. And as unreasonable and unrealistic as it seemed at the time... nowadays, it is frighteningly reminiscent of modern television. William Holden gives an incredible performance as a producer who sees to what ludicrous extents the network has gone, but is unable to stop it. Frankly, mainstream society's willingness to swallow the sensationalism the network feeds them is more powerful than anything he can do. And therefore, he must sit back and watch it happen. Peter Finch gives an excitable performance as well as an anchorman who has been driven to a mental breakdown, and then becomes the voice of the masses. Faye Dunaway, usually a terribly stagey and unrealistic actress, actually tags her role for once, for which I give credit most to the screenwriter for fleshing out such a solid female character (not always so available). Robert Duvall is strong in his role as a power-hungry executive. And Ned Beatty, proving that he is capable of magnificent acting, received an Oscar nomination simply upon one perfectly scripted and perfectly delivered monologue. In fact, when you break the script down, you find that for the most part, this film is just a series of precise, fine-tuned monologues. And there is nothing wrong with that. No other movie since has come close to hitting upon the subject of media frenzy, America's obsession of television and mass-market sensationalism quite so well as this film did.
