CITY BY THE SEA (Michael Caton-Jones, 2002)

Reviewed: September 8th, 2002

There's exactly one remarkable scene in City by the Sea, a flat, boring, interminable father/son crime drama. It is the scene in which De Niro -- frantically delivering a mouthful of pleas, his voice sporadically breaking and his face falling in and out of watery eyes -- reminds you why he's considered one of cinema's finest the world over. This oscillation is as painfully a realistic bit of acting as I can ever remember seeing. De Niro's last ditch effort to salvage the poorly written, lazily plotted fertilizer which surrounds him will be the only part of City by the Sea that'll stick with me after I wake up tomorrow morning.

I could write a grocery-length list of everything that's wrong with this film, but I'll stick to the major points:

(1) Despite the super-talented trio of starring actors (De Niro, Frances McDormand, James Franco), virtually all of City by the Sea's scenes lack any trace of electricity, playing instead as dullness strung next to more dullness. How director Caton-Jones and screenwriter Ken Hixon managed to waste so much talent, I cannot comprehend.

(2) William Forsythe plays the most clichéd, least interesting, most shallow villain in cinema history. Each of his terrible scenes reflects accordingly.

(3) The movie's logline -- a decent yet deadbeat cop's junkie son is accused of murder -- is pretty interesting. So why doesn't the film ever follow up and explore the father and son's relationship with any depth or nuance? Instead De Niro's character seems to hardly care about what's happening around him, just kinda absentmindedly going through the motions of Mr. Screenwriter's bland plot beats.

(4) Consequently, the movie is bloated and repetitive, dancing around what could and should be its most valuable assets.

(5) This is the kind of film where (like every other lame policier ever made) De Niro's nice, sweet cop partner has a nice, sweet family. Given the mighty Sword of Triteness Mr. Screenwriter wields, it doesn't take a magic 8-ball to predict said partner's fate.

My audience was laughing loudly during many of what were clearly supposed to be City by the Sea's most "dramatic" scenes. Save your money and I'll save my words, cause I don't wanna write another sentence about this thing.

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