"In 24 hours your world can change," goes the slogan of The New York Sun, a Big Apple tabloid; the maxim applies to reporters as well as readers. City Editor Henry Hackett (Michael Keaton) loves street-level news business, but he's got a tempting job offer from a stuffy, "quality" rival daily; a pregnant wife to consider; and a nemesis in the shape of the Sun's managing editor, Alicia Clark (Glenn Close), who doubts his story sense. Their antagonism boils over with the day's big story, a mob hit on some white businessmen, disguised as a racial murder.
Howard weaves multiple subplots and supporting characters into the main story with finesse, imposing order, good humor, and straight-ahead momentum on a naturally chaotic subject. Some components work better than others; the troubles of a weary editor-in-chief (Robert Duvall) seeking detente with his estranged daughter are standard melodrama, and Randy Quaid deserves more time as a legendary beat reporter who has been "demoted" to a Jimmy Breslin-style columnist. But the ensemble performances are terrific and, thanks to the breezy pace, the flaws hardly matter.
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