City Hall
by Harold Becker
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DVD details
Actor: Al Pacino, Bridget Fonda, Danny Aiello, John Cusack, Martin LandauDirector: Harold Becker
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Charles Mulvehill
Producer: Edward R. Pressman
Producer: Elizabeth Carroll
Writer: Bo Goldman
Writer: Ken Lipper
Writer: Nicholas Pileggi
Writer: Paul Schrader
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-07-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Turner Home Ent
DVD Reviews of City Hall
DVD Review: A good subject but the rhythm of a TV film
Summary: 4 Stars
The film concerns a classic theme. In fact it concerns the theme exploited by Batman, from beginning to end, but in real data and details. The mayor of New York, appreciated and very diligent and dynamic, in order to get some project through slightly faster than normal, yields to some pressure from some private business contractors about a criminal drug dealer who should have been sent and kept in prison and he pressurizes the judge in his turn to set him free on probation in spite of a negative probation report that disappears but is not destroyed, be it only because of the political value it represents. And what was to happen happens and a few people, including a black schoolboy is killed in a shoot out between a police detective and that criminal. The city may explode because of it: racial tension because of the black school boy and social tension because of the insecurity such criminals free to roam around and go on with their criminal activities represent to the public. Unluckily the film does not show that tension very well and follows the investigation of the first deputy mayor who wants to find out the truth and does find it out. But along the way a few witnesses are killed, and those who had played some role in the whole business are forced to retire (the judge), to end their career and life (the contractor or the contractor's go between), a public officer who was ready to deliver the disappeared probation report, and some shady character after he provides some crucial information. The mayor himself retires and takes a long vacation; But the main interest of the film is in the exploration of the contortions the mayor is doing to cover up the problem and the contortions he remembers having done in the past that led to the mistake about this probation case. The political philosophy that nothing is pure white or pure black and that everything is grey which is never comfortable to decision makers is invoked as an excuse for wrong but profitable decisions. We are not speaking of necessary compromises to get to some consensus in some domains that are crucial to public interest. We are speaking of considering as less important to take a bad decision about some petty or supposedly petty criminal than some infrastructure or economic project in the city. That is not typical of New York. That is true in any mayoral office. It is just more significant in quantity and in quality in a big metropolitan area like New York and of course in a city or country where police departments are municipal and are controlled by political imperatives. The young deputy mayor is thus pushing the old mayor out of the way, and he derails his ambition to be the governor of New York in order to become the president of the US. The mayor is perfect due to the embodiment Al Pacino offers us since he is able to express ten minutes of dialogue with one facial expression that makes the whole dialogue useless. I find the end slightly mushy with the ex-deputy mayor campaigning in his own name. That seems to mean that he was so attached to justice because he saw his chance to push the mayor out of his own way. Hence he is not better than all the others, just still too young in his ambition.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
DVD Review: i love this movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I love John Cusack in this movie. It's the space between the handshake... That was really good. they were fabulous. I loved it.DVD 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.DVD Review: City Hall
Summary: 4 Stars
A solid film and a step up from another John Cusack political drama, the decent but yuppie-themed "True Colors." Cusack's character is the deputy mayor of NYC, aka the ambitious mayor's,(Al Pacino) right hand man. A shooting in Brooklyn leaves three people dead which culminates into a Willie Horton type legal & media crisis for the mayor's office. Cusack teams up with Bridget Fonda, a lawyer for the detectives endowment fund to perform due diligence only to find their digging ends up too close to home. Danny Aiello does a good job as a complicated yet sympathetic Brooklyn councilman; Martin Landau as a bent new york supreme court judge and former law partner of the mayor; Richard Schiff as a probation supervisor; and David Paymer as a top city hall advisor. Snappy intelligent dialogue, Pacino is rarely better.
"The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know." ~ Harry Truman
DVD Review: City Hall
Summary: 3 Stars
A decent and somewhat entertaining movie about political corruption in New York, this movie arguably would have been a total flop were it not for Pacino and Cusack. I feel that the amount of killing is a little excessive and lends to the general pradicability of the plot. It was worth watching once, but I doubt I'll ever feel compelled to do so again.
Description of City Hall
He's a consummate politician who walks a mile in your shoes, feels your pain. But there may be more to populist New York City populist mayor Al Pacino than meets the eye. Year: 1996 Director: Harold Becker Starring: Al Pacino, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda, Danny Aiello Special Features: Interactive menus, Scene access Video Format: A: Standard; B: Widescreen Sound: English: Dolby Surround 2.0; French; Subtitles: English, French Region Coding: 1 (U.S. and Canada)This complex 1996 drama directed by Harold Becker (Sea of Love) attempts to explore big-city corruption and the flexibility of what's right and wrong in the political arena. John Cusack (Say Anything) plays the senior aide to mayor John Pappas (Al Pacino), a popular and seasoned politician whose administration is threatened when what seems to be an accidental shooting of a child reveals a nest of corruption and lifelong personal debts that tests Cusack's loyalty to the man he thought he knew. Pacino turns in a finely textured performance as a man who has his own lofty ideals, but whose pragmatism sets in motion a series of events with tragic results. Cusack admirably captures the essence of someone polished and savvy at his job who must cope with fundamental disillusionment. This political thriller suffers at times from a lack of focus, but still offers an insightful and poignant treatise on the quagmire of politics in the modern age and the human toll it sometimes exacts. --Robert Lane
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