City Hall
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Movie Reviews of City Hall
Movie Review: Al Pacino overacts?!
Summary: 3 Stars
Pacino has been my favorite actor ever since his amazing performance in Heat. It has always bothered me when people cut him down saying that he doesn't give a serious performance but that he relies on overacting and shouting. After watching this film though I must agree. He gives an excellent performance that is very touching and subtle but is ruined by a scene in the middle of the film where he resorts to shouting and overacting. Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas), and two other writers contributed to the script which focuses on government corruption in the Big Apple. John Pappas (Pacino) is the well liked mayor and Kevin (John Cusack) is his loyal assistant. Frank Anselmo (Danny Aiello) is a union boss who promotes himself as a friend of the people but is being told what to do by a powerful mobster. Bridget Fonda plays a tireless investigative reporter who knows that none of these men are what they seem and is determined to tell the citizens the truth. A rogue cop has a meeting with a drug dealer one rainy morning. He isn't wearing a vest and he doesn't have any backup to assist him should things go wrong. He has gotten a tip from the dealer's cousin as to where he can find his man and when all three of them come face to face they surprise each other and guns are drawn. In the chaotic shootout the cop and the dealer get shot as well as a six year old boy who was being walked to school by his grandfather. All three die. The story quickly breaks all over the news and the mayor has to address this tragedy. He makes a hastily assembled speech without knowing all the particulars and he assigns Kevin the task of finding out what really happened. This sends Kevin on a search for answers in which he finds out more than he ever wanted to about Pappas. The mystery deepens when Kevin tries to figure out whose bullet struck the kid. Was it the cop's or the dealer's? The legal system is indicted as well since the dealer should have been in jail but a judge let him walk. Martin Landau plays the conflicted judge and proves that nearly all the government officials in this film are corrupt. The scene that nearly spoils Pacino's overall performance is when he delivers the eulogy at the boy's funeral. His advisers have all warned him that appearing at the funeral is not a wise move but he insists that he must be there to inspire hope and unity. The speech starts off sincere and builds from there. Soon Al is shouting and his eyes are going wild and he's slamming the pulpit with both fists. He works the mostly black congregation into a frenzy. We've seen this before and for the first time I realize that there is a time and a place in a Pacino film for this kind of outburst and at this particular moment it doesn't feel right. Al does this better than anybody and even though it's entertaining to watch it comes at a price. Pacino is back to serious acting in the film's final scenes. By this time Kevin knows the truth and confronts Pappas at his mansion before he is to speak at another memorial. Kevin is devastated that his mentor has been lying to him and Pacino plays the scene as if he were Kevin's father and Kevin is his grown son who no longer needs hims. The film has a lot of talented people involved and even though the story isn't that shocking and is confusing at times City Hall is a decent enough movie.Movie Review: Too Many Cooks?
Summary: 3 Stars
This political thriller isn't bad. It's well cast with strong performances. (You've probably seen Al Pacino do this before, though.) It has good pacing, clarity and moving speeches. It examines the possibility that the deal making necessary for political effectiveness is also the root of corruption. Still, it's nothing to go out of your way to see.First, it's predictable. You know whose clay feet the trail of corruption must lead to. One minor character mentions that he's six months from retirement. You know he'll never collect the pension.
Also, the film had four writers and seems haunted by distracting fragments from abandoned drafts as if someone wrote things that others took in different directions. Shifting character focus between drafts would explain why important characters often receive perfunctory development while others seem overwritten. The film lacks a center because Mayor Papas (Pacino) is simply a charismatic icon- important only for what he represents to others. Brigit Fonda plays an attractive do-gooder who challenges the hero (John Cusack) to be true to his ideals. There's little chemistry because her character lacks development and their relationship is a formulaic flirtation. By contrast, Danny Aiello's character, an Italian politician, defies stereotype because he loves musical theater rather than opera. However, since the character is otherwise predictably stereotypical, the attention given his musical tastes (including a strange duet with a waiter) seems pointless.
Indeed, ethnic and regional origins often substitute for character development here. The hero's Louisiana hometown is mentioned twice, establishing him as an idealistic but wily outsider. Yet, curiously, the mayor is a Greek who spouts yiddishisms. That and other scattered references made me wonder if he wasn't Jewish in earlier drafts and a more developed character. Now, the Jewish references just seem like lame, out-of-towner attempts at New York local color.
Movie Review: Al Pacino Is At His Thrilling Best!
Summary: 3 Stars
Viewed: 6/04, 5/05
Rate: 6
5/05: City Hall is an elaborately made picture that seems to be fogged up by the complicated story yet with a strong sense of being a political thriller. The cast, besides Al Pacino, did well but was occasionally dead. When Al Pacino is not seen, the story of the film seems to move well, slowly getting to the point. The moment Al Pacino appears, there is a rousing of energy that sends City Hall on a faster pace. After he disappears, City Hall almost becomes stagnant but moving slowly. John Cusack is very interesting here as the Deputy Mayor, outlining his job, but his acting isn't consistent throughout the film. Danny Aiello does well enough to give his weight. Bridget Fonda's role is a puzzling one. Although her character is intriguing, she doesn't do much to add another dimension of City Hall, and it seemed to me that she couldn't live up to the demands of the film. For the story, it felt, to me, too vague but with some clear messages. Harold Becker's direction is well done and needs to be strengthened a bit more for the sake of clarity in the story. Back to Al Pacino, this is very fine acting, being able to create energy like that and to make waves out of nothing. He almost brings Michael Corleone back, but Al Pacino takes a different direction in the characterization of John Pappas, the not-so-apparent-corrupt mayor of New York. The eulogy speech remains the best scene of City Hall. Then, the stretch to the finishing line with John Cusack, Al Pacino carefully and skillfully orchestrated his acceptance to bottom out, and he does this so marvelously well. At best, Al Pacino is absolutely riveting in City Hall. Like Glengarry Glen Ross, City Hall features another memorable, can't-miss Al Pacino performance. All in all, City Hall comes off as a weak picture due to poorly developed lines and a shoddy story, but Al Pacino makes it extremely watchable, and the film had the potential to play out as a great political game.
Movie Review: See it for Pacino
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a film that left-brained folks who can follow complicated plots will probably like better than right-brained people like me who are more interested in who falls in love with whom.
The main love connection here is between Al Pacino as Pappas, the first Greek mayor of New York, and John Cusak as Calhoun, his young apprentice, transplanted from Louisiana. The admiration that the young man has for the older one and his ultimate disillusionment is a good story. Unfortunately there are too many characters doing too many undercover things and I lost track which diminished my interest in the film. They should have provided a roster of characters.
Bridget Fonda appears briefly as another idealistic young person and for a while there seems to be a possibility of something more than camaraderie between her and the Cusak character, but that story line was sort of dropped until the rather silly ending.
Overall the acting was first rate. Pacino was magnificent. Others have called his Harlem "sermon" over-the-top but I thought it was the best thing in the film. (reminded me of Bill Clinton)
Cusak is quite good too, but when he's on the screen with Pacino, all eyes are with the old guy; he is amazingly entertaining.
All of the supporting characters are well played with the possible exception of Fonda whose presence was lack-luster.
If I could, I've give the film three and a half stars. Great cast but you'll forget it ten minutes after the closing credits. Don't we already know that many politicians are corrupt?
Movie Review: THE OLD GRAY MAYOR
Summary: 3 Stars
One can't deny that Al Pacino is an electrifying actor and he can make almost any movie better than it should have been. In CITY HALL, he suffers from the curse of too many writers spoiling the broth. The script is disjointed, at times contradictory, and the ending is a letdown in the lack of its intensity. Pacino is matched by a fine young actor, John Cusack, who plays the gungho idol worshipping deputy mayor. Bridget Fonda is lovely to look at, but her role is so underdeveloped, she could have been a male character and we wouldn't have noticed the difference. Danny Aiello is brilliant in his usual "mafia" role, but his talent enables him to instill a small sense of humaneness in his doomed role. Notice the great opera singer Roberta Peters in the small role of his wife. Anthony Franciosa, rarely seen in movies these days, plays the crime boss with a reserved intensity that makes him even more vitriolic. David Paymer is good, but his role isn't fleshed out enough to know his character. Martin Landau's judge is also almost a cameo, but Landau delivers. Much mention is made of the late great Jerry Goldsmith's score, which is so eclectic, it doesn't have much impact. The music at the end credits almost sounds like a western or war movie accompaniment.
CITY HALL is interesting, but ultimately its tale of political corruption is so derivative and predictable, it doesn't elevate the movie to the potential greatness it could have achieved.