The Paper

Director Howard's attempt to recycle the classic '30s newspaper comedy is busy, busy, busy. Keaton's in his element as Henry Hackett, city editor of the New York Sun. Today's top story is the controversial arrest of two black youths in a race murder. But while Henry and his bitchy colleague Alicia (Close) debate tabloid semantics, he's equally preoccupied with a job offer from a rival, editor Duvall's health, and his wife's great expectations (Tomei, eight and a half months pregnant)...the suspects' rumoured innocence is almost an afterthought. A perennial innocent himself, Howard responds to the blunt professionalism of the hack pack with as much enthusiasm as Billy Wilder and Howard Hawks before him - but spoils it by insisting that somehow the tabloids have integrity. He likes his sincerity straight. It's come to something when a newspaper movie casts the cynical journalist as the villain, and the big moral dilemma here would scarcely support a sit-com. Even so, quite watchable, with whip pans and fast tracks, and one eye constantly on the clock.