City by the Sea (2002) Reviewed by Eugene Novikov http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
Starring Robert De Niro, James Franco, Frances McDormand, Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe, George Dzundza.
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones.
Rated R.
"I didn't walk out on him, I walked out on you!" The tagline for City by the Sea can only be described as pointlessly accurate: "When you're searching for a killer... the last suspect you want to see is your son." True, no doubt, and a potentially interesting, reasonably original concept for a Robert De Niro movie. Shame that the flick, directed by the seen-better-days Michael Caton-Jones (This Boy's Life), only pretends to be about a man trying to be a cop and a father. It has other, more maudlin things on its mind, like "redemption," and "being a dad." There is a better way to approach this material, and I expected to see something in the vein of Training Day and instead got Before and After.
The city of the title is Long Beach, NY, and City by the Sea makes a point of showing protagonist Vincent Lamarca's (Robert De Niro) idyllic memories on frolicking on its sun-lit beaches as a child before sharply contrasting the images with the lonely, lifeless vistas that represent it today. The abandoned warehouses and playgrounds are home to Joey Lamarca (James Franco), a seemingly hopeless young junkie who is teetering ever closer to the edge. In a drug-induced stupor, Joey and his friend Snake accost a drug dealer who comes after them with a knife. Not knowing exactly where he is or what he's doing, Joey nevertheless kills the guy in self-defense.
It isn't long before Joey becomes the prime suspect in the investigation led by his homicide detective father, who is taken off the case shortly after the identity of the probable murderer is made known to Vincent's cynical boss. You see, Vincent's father was executed when Vincent was eight years old, and a media blitz about the "killer gene" that runs in the family is likely to be intense. Vincent walked away from his ex-wife Maggie (Patti LuPone) and baby Joey after a domestic argument turned violent, an event neither party was able to live down. Now, he is cautiously dating his neighbor Michelle (Frances McDormand), who knows that he is keeping things from her out of fear.
When City by the Sea deigns to be an old-school police procedural, it mostly works, and I liked the early scenes in which Vincent is forced to deal with his fellow policemen in the investigation involving his son. It's an intriguing topic, and for at least its first half the film seems to be going about it the right way, with the older Lamarca dedicated to doing his job as a cop while in doubt about the future of his son. When he is abruptly taken off the case, returning home to deal with Joey's ex-girfriend and mother of his child (Eliza Dushku), it becomes evident that the movie has little interest in the issue at hand.
Instead, Caton-Jones goes into excruciatingly absurd detail on Vincent being afraid of everyone thinking that violence runs in his family. The attention paid to this utterly trivial part of the plot is inexplicable: who cares? I couldn't summon any interest in Vincent's familial affairs, especially since his conversations with his ex consist of her calling him a wifebeater and him turning around and staring at her in indignation. Actually, that's not entirely true: the script forces De Niro to deliver an extraordinary number of desperate, entreating, aplologetic monologues, which makes sense in the context of Vincent being a rationalizing coward but doesn't make him or the movie any more interesting.
The plot continues to escalate in ludicrousness as it proceeds, culminating in a laughable climax that recycles a gazillion cop movie cliches in service of a resolution I didn't see coming because I ruled it out as too obvious. Without giving too much away, if after reading the plot description you come up with a conjecture as to the most straightforward way a story like this could end, you're probably correct.
I hesitate to say that a good movie cannot be made about a man who redeems himself to his family in the face of a potential tragedy. Objectively, in fact, City by the Sea is probably better than I give it credit for being. I was irked throughout by the nagging fact that I could have been watching a grittier, more exciting movie. All of the actors involved, despite Franco's decidedly phony New York accent, are more than capable of it. It would only have taken a slight change in strategy.
Grade: C
©2002 Eugene Novikov
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