Customer Reviews

City Hall [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I really wanted to love this movie. It was beautifully written. Pacino's speeches as the mayor of New York City were powerful and full of melodrama . . . the good kind of melodrama that made you realize that he was manipulating everyone until the very end. Cusack was great in this movie that gave him a chance to show off his superb acting skills. He completely takes on the persona of the naive politican from Louisana who realizes that the fine web of political intrigue he's in the middle of may be the trap that destoys him and New York. Bridget Fonda also stars as a lawyer wholly devoted to getting justice for her client, the wife of a murdered police officer. As I said, I wanted to love this movie, but I never really got a chance to identify with the characters. But, on the other hand, that may have been the idea all along. A great realistic drama, that I would recommend to see at least once.

This is one of the best crime-drama movies during the late 1990s. It was filled with a great cast, a huge storyline, and many of the players involved gave great performances. Pacino was great; he should have been nominated for something. John Cusack was good too, as long as the viewer doesn't mind his Louuu-siana accent. He may come off as annoying if you can't stand this dialect. The way that Pacino's character interacted with Cusack's character was believable, dramatic, and slightly comical at times. Danny Aiello was superb as always. David Paymer was great in a supporting role. Bridget Fonda was good but not memorable.
There were times when this picture mentioned so many characters, probably too many. It may take a second viewing to remember, "which Zapatti was which?" After so many cross-references, one has to stop and think just to recap.
The ending didn't have a lot of sting. It was built up for so long in a good way and then was a little bit of a letdown. This was one of the few letdowns in the film
I think that since the movie wasn't billed as a huge, blockbuster big screen hit, it made some forget that this movie even existed. Pacino was great but the film's lack of "splash" in the theaters may have accounted for no nominations. It was semi-successful in the home market, and viewers are still learing that this title is out there. Made in 1996, it still stands up seven years later and should still be popular for many years from now.

So, make yourself some lemon pudding (you'll see) and rent this movie! Overall, a great picture.
4 ½ out of 5!!!

This review refers to the 1999 Castle Rock/WB DVD edition....
Harold Becker directs a terrific cast in this smart political thriller,"City Hall". It takes place in New York City and revolves around a shootout on the streets of Brooklyn that took the lives of a drug dealer, a cop and a six year old boy caught in the crossfire.
Deputy Mayor Calhoun(John Cusak), an idealistic but in the know transplant from the South,begins his own investagation that at every turn leads him up the ladder of the poltical bosses in New York.It also leads to more murders as the cover up begins.
The drug dealer (the nephew of a powerful crime boss),had been let off on probation a couple of years earlier, and this is the focus of the investagation. How did this happen? Who is responsible for allowing this criminal to walk the streets? Everyone is suspect from the Probation Officer to the sentencing Judge. Or could it go all the way to the top? To the man that Calhoun idealizes,his mentor, his boss, the very savvy, diplomatic Mayor John Pappas(Al Pacino).
Al Pacino gives an electrifying performance as only he could do as the leader of the great city of New York. Cusak is excellent in his role as "The Mayor's Boy". They are joined by one great supporting cast. Danny Aiello, Tony Franciosa, Martin Landau, Bridget Fonda and David Paymer, who all turn in terrific performances.
You don't want to miss a minute of this mystery, there is always a new twist or turn occuring in the plot.We are also treated to lots of scenes of the city itself.
The DVD is in widescreen(also in standard if you prefer),has a nice crisp clear picture, and bright colors. The sound is 2.0 Dolby Surround. Could have been better but dosen't take away from the story. There were no special features included, just a good story with great acting that will have you totally involved. There are subtitiles in English and French.
So get the popcorn ready and enjoy........Laurie

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.

"City Hall" is one of those movies that I watched expecting the best. It had a great cast and crew of which I have seen excellent films from. But all I got in the end was a lukewarm film. The premise is great. Political corruption always makes for an interesting movie and it certainly is interesting. Sadly it suffers from its own plot. So much time is spent trying to uncover this scandal that occurs in this film that there is no time to get to know any of the characters. Al Pacino plays the mayor of New York and while he handles the role passionately the script does not allow his character anytime to develop as with Cusak, Fonda, Aiello. The cast is supurb. In fact I do not believe I have seen better from John Cusak who rarely gets a stab at complex films such as this and Bridget Fonda and Danny Aiello both give excellent supporting performances. The intereaction between Cusak and Fonda also seemed really fake as well not by the actors fault but the screenwriters. There is no chemestry where one would expect. It isn't all that bad of a film. Fans of the actors should definately rent it especially for a really good Pacino monologue (they had to throw that in somewhere). The film had the director and the cast but what it needed was a better script.

Al Pacino is Pappas, the first great Greek mayor of New York City in this overly complex ploitical thriller hinting at the rot underlying big-city politics. Though the advertising and packaging of the movie focus on Pacino, the real hero is John Cusack as Kevin Calhoun, a Louisiana transplant who lives to be Mayor's eyes and ears. Calhoun's Louisiana background hints at Huey-Long style politics and a massively powerful and successful political future of his own, but for the moment, he's jumping for bullets aimed at the Mayor. We're supposed to see the city as Calhoun's biggest test - he's savy enough about politics, but New Yorkers with their Yiddishisms just baffle him.

Unfortunately, the city plainly baffles the people who made this movie. The story begins with a street shootout on a rainy day involving a recently released con. The sentencing judge, the PO and the city's political bosses discover their own dirty acts as Cuisack follows the trail. People die mysteriously and the hints of organized crime remain fairly visible. But there's no story, only a bunch of scenes (not enough containing Pacino) hinting at the political rot, but no connetcing plot. By the time credits roll, you're not sure what you've seen or who should take the consequences. The flick boasts some top-flight talent (Cusack and Pacino, Martin Landau as the embattled judge, but also Danny Aiello as the political boss, the underrated David Paymer and Bridget Fonda), but they do nothing more than float through the movie. It's not clear if Fonda is supposed to be Cusack's foil, love interest or the charachter that gets Cusack to step out of others' shadows and become the leader he knows he can be. Little of the film comes together, but it's still worth a view.

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.

Harold Becker is a director you can trust, that is, if you're Al Pacino. If you're just some stiff with $8.00 for a movie ticket, then `let the buyer beware' should be your credo.

I am not a big Pacino fan, feeling he only plays one character well, and that one I'm way past tired. John Cusack, on the other hand, is a different story. Next to him Pacino has a good chance of looking good here, and he does.

What Bridget Fonda or her character is doing, I have no idea. The role she plays here is so meaningless you have to wonder if she put some money in the picture herself. In the fast moving world of Hollywood's careers, one rarely recovers from this Waterworld sized mistake. She gets her mortgage paid, I'm sure, but we get absolutely nothing in return. The on-screen chemistry between Fonda and Cusack rivals the Jodie Foster-Matthew McConaghey pairing in "Contact", (or Lisa Marie Presley and anybody), for lack of heat.

The story? Who knows? It wanders aimlessly (like New York City bureaucracy) to an unsatisfactory, or no real conclusion (like New York City bureaucracy). If the purpose was to show us that even those with best of intentions...(can't get anything done) well we know that already. Maybe that there is a fine line between the good guys and the bad guys...but we know that already.

That a Harold Becker movie will leave you less than satisfied....we know that already.

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.

When I read the list of the actors in "City Hall" I expected a lot, but somehow the movie lacked something to make it lasting. It's not the acting and it's not the story, they are all ok, but they don't lift the movie to the level that most Pacino or Cusack movies have. For the real fans of these two the movie is worth watching, but it won't be remembered in the next decades I think.

The political side I think is also not a new story, even Pacino himself has played on more movies about the same theme, but in Serpico he was a lot better.