City by the Sea (2002)

Drug addict Joey LaMarca (James Franco) defends himself and kills dealer Picasso. He is injured and goes home to his skeptical mother (Patti LuPone). His estranged father NYPD homicide detective Vincent LaMarca (Robert De Niro) and his partner Reg Duffy (George Dzundza) are given the case of the dead drug dealer. Spyder (William Forsythe) is also after his associate's killer. Michelle (Frances McDormand) is Vincent's girlfriend. Gina (Eliza Dushku) is Joey's girlfriend and baby mama. Fellow addict Snake rats out Joey.There are good actors doing solid work. This material could be given a more grim style. This represents a slow slide in the quality of director Michael Caton-Jones. This should be a more intense thriller and a more heart-breaking tragedy. I keep thinking that this movie should be better. The biographical nature does muddy the story. There is an overall lack of intensity.

This ended up being just an okay crime drama despite the more than decent cast, an intriguing plot and a pretty brilliant performance from James Franco. It's based on a true story about a well respected and dedicated New York City police detective (Robert DeNiro) who has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his past, as his father was executed for the 1950s kidnapping of a child.With a tentative relationship just beginning with his downstairs neighbor (Frances McDormand) Vincent's latest investigation threatens to topple everything as his own (estranged and drug addicted) son has just become the lead suspect in the murder investigation. This is a gritty character drama that I'd expected to be better. 11/6

City by the Sea is directed by Michael Caton-Jones and adapted to screenplay by Ken Hixon from the article Mark of a Murderer written by Michael McAlary. It stars Robert De Niro, James Franco, Eilza Dushku, Frances McDormand, George Dzundza and William Forsythe. Music is scored by John Murphy and cinematography by Karl Walter Lindenlaub.Based on a true story, plot finds De Niro as Vincent LaMarca, a veteran New York cop who carries around the burden of being the son of an executed child killer. Though comfortable in his life, where he gets on with his cop partner and has a romantic relationship with a lady in his apartment block, things quickly grow dark when it transpires that Vincent's estranged son Joey (Franco), a drug user out at Long Beach, has apparently committed murder.With the trailers at the time of release wrongly hinting at some explosive cop drama, and with De Niro's standing as a serious drama actor on the wane, City by the Sea has pretty much failed to inspire some steadfast support from 2002 onwards. Yet it's well worth inspection by those film fans who appreciate a crisp screenplay and top line acting.De Niro is on form, without doubt, but he is clearly helped by having actors around him who can compete on the same terms. There's a believability to the core relationships in the film, be it De Niro and Franco as father and son, or De Niro and McDormand as lovers, the writing calls for actors of strength to hold court and make this dialogue heavy picture worth attention. And they do, very much so.Narratively the piece thrives on irony and the great old noir staple of past events looming large over a protagonist. Primarily it's about how Vincent deals with the splinters of his past suddenly surfacing in his life. This proves to make the film more a drama than a thriller, there are no high octane deaths and dismemberment's, no back street alleyway wackings, this is very much a character driven, unpretentious and emotionally affecting movie.Just like his actors, Caton-Jones is perfectly restrained, his direction has a nice flow that aids the story, no tricks are needed to beef up the human interest. He allows the principal character's stories to build, making sure that Hixon's adult screenplay comes to the fore; that character reactions are not twee or too far fetched. In fact it's very refreshing to see the way McDormand's girlfriend reacts to the "new" information she has to deal with in her love life. Visually there's some lovely work by Lindenlaub (Rob Roy), where nightscapes and a red sunset stand tall and proud, and Murphy's score is thankfully unobtrusive given the nature of the story. 7/10

If this movie was a gas, it would be inert. Although "inspired by a true story", it's not all that truthful. However, that does not distract from the picture. What matters is that the "action/thriller/drama" contains very little of anything. This is not even a passable "popcorner". It is, however, OK to use as background noise if you are doing some ironing, or tidying up around the home. DeNiro has done so much better, it is a shame to see this trite, flat, boring waste of film stock. Too, it is difficult to see how bad DeNiro is physically. He had to wear a heavily-padded suit to portray Al Capone. He was in top shape for "Heat". Now, he's a puffy, overweight, pasty blob. He and Steven Seagal ought to get a discount membership at Weight Watchers. While living in Shanghai, China, I picked up a copy of the movie for the equivalent of $1.15 - I want my money back.