
John Cassellis is the toughest TV-news reporter around. His area of interest is reporting about violence in the ghetto and racial tensions. But he discovers that his network helps the FBI by letting it look at his tapes to find suspects. When he protests, he is fired and goes to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.... (Full plot summary below)
Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
Links compiled using automated software. Availability of offers subject to change / might be region specific / out of date.
John Cassellis is the toughest TV-news reporter around. His area of interest is reporting about violence in the ghetto and racial tensions. But he discovers that his network helps the FBI by letting it look at his tapes to find suspects. When he protests, he is fired and goes to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
Leave your thoughts about Medium Cool.
| Slant MagazineJohn SemleyMedium Cool stages, not so much with voguish nihilism, despite its demonstrably downbeat ending, as dispassionate vérité straightforwardness, the growing pains that strain a nation when the countercultural ideal of limitless possibility matures into something closer to political reality. |
| The SpectatorPenelope HoustonThis brilliantly uneasy film has a sharp enough sense of its own paradoxes to shake off as naive the very questions it raises. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMedium Cool is finally so important, and absorbing because of the way Wexler weaves all these elements together. He has made an almost perfect example of the new movie. Because we are so aware this is a movie, It seems more relevant and real than the smooth fictional surface of, say, Midnight Cowboy. |
| Film Freak CentralWalter ChawThe film doesn't exactly end, because it's not so much a narrative as it is a mile-marker and a warning. |
| Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesMedium Cool is also recognized as a pointed early critique of the news media, noting the amoral detachment of TV journalists and the collusion between their corporate bosses and the government to shape a political narrative. But for people who love Chicago, the film may be most valuable as a cultural document, recording a much younger city in the midst of a turbulent summer. |
| The GuardianPhilip FrenchMedium Cool encapsulates the divisive issues of race and poverty that remain as urgent today as they did in 1968. It also makes us think about the way the media shape our lives and are used to deflect public attention from sustained political action. |
| Apollo GuideJeremy HeilmanWhatever its weaknesses, they are easy to forgive since Medium Cool represents a pioneering slice of cinematic history. |
| Goatdog's MoviesMichael W. Phillips, Jr.Skillfully manipulates viewer expectations of fiction and nonfiction. |
| Cinema WriterJay Antania quintessential late-60s time capsule piece |
| The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayAside from the romance between Forster and Bloom—which gets in the way of the volatile Summer Of Love action, and ends in typically nihilistic '60s-youth-pic fashion—Medium Cool still has impact. |