Harper Barnes
Select another critic »For 94 reviews, this critic has graded:
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68% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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29% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.5 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Harper Barnes' Scores
- Movies
- TV
| Average review score: | 66 | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest review score: | The Age of Innocence | |
| Lowest review score: | Color of Night | |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 63 out of 94
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Mixed: 17 out of 94
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Negative: 14 out of 94
94
movie
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Harper Barnes
Rookie of year strikes out in the laughs department. [09 Jul 1993, p.3D]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Elijah Wood Jr. is excellent as a boy who goes looking for a new father and mother. A fairly amusing, very light fantasy from Rob Reiner. [14 Aug 1994, p.14C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Posse is an exciting, action-packed Western, and almost all of its social commentary is skillfully embedded in the gripping drama itself. [14 May 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The movie has a hallucinatory intensity that is skillfully mixed with light-comic relief and straight-faced farce. It never takes itself too seriously, and never veers too far in the other direction by surrendering to self-parody. [01 Jul 1994, p.3D]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The best thing about Renegades is a beautifully choreographed car chase early in the movie. After that, the movie creeps along for 20 minutes or so while the two principals grope toward buddyhood. Then, with bonding accomplished, the action picks up somewhat, but never really catches fire. [07 Jun 1989, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
CRAZY PEOPLE is a one-joke movie. It's a pretty good joke: Slightly unbalanced people write ads that tell the absolute truth about products, and the products sell like crazy. But it isn't good enough to make us care for long about a mental-institution romance between Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah that has the feel of ''David and Lisa: The Sit-Com.'' [13 Apr 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Hearts and Souls is an only intermittently entertaining reworking of an ancient Hollywood formula. [13 Aug 1993, p.5F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
On a scale of 1 ("Men in Tights") to 10 ("Naked Gun"), I'd give "Fatal Instinct" about a 5. [31 Oct 1993, p.9C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
PRESUMABLY this zombie flick is supposed to be funny, since it's about as scary as "Little Women." [18 Jan 1995, p.6F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
If there is a criticism of this generally superb documentary, it would be that it focuses a little too much on Monk's mental condition and could have devoted more of that time to exploring his highly innovative music. But if ''Straight, No Chaser'' succeeds through its psycho-biographical focus in interesting more people in the music of this brilliant man, then I cannot really quibble with the approach. [27 Apr 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
If you are willing to forgive it a lot -- and on a sunny, winter-spring day, my capacity for forgiveness was immense -- Chances Are can be an entertaining little trifle. [17 March 1989, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A very unsettling black comedy....although by the end, you might feel as if you have been assaulted by a combination of ''Blue Velvet'' and ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'' This is a very impressive directorial debut for Bob Balaban, working from a chilling (and eventually cutting and slashing) script by Christopher Hawthorne. [28 Apr 1989, p.6F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Prince is a puzzle. Unfortunately, in Graffiti Bridge, he isn't a very interesting one. The main problem may be that most of the music in this sequel to Prince's 1984 musical Purple Rain is mediocre, mainly derived from rap and funk but without the energy those forms generate when they are presented raw. [06 Nov 1990, p.4D]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Just when you've decided it's just another queasy thriller about a woman-hating serial killer, and you're beginning to wonder if Hollywood isn't making too many of these nasty little things, Malice winds up and delivers a terrific curveball. [01 Oct 1993, p.3EV]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Reeves seems less blissed out than conked out, as if he had sustained a heavy blow from a loose surfboard. [27 May 1994, p.3H]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Without question. Vertigo is one of the best movies ever made by one of the best directors. [Restored version; 7 Dec 1996, p.41]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
ROMEO Is Bleeding is an interesting mess. A very self-conscious contemporary take on the film noir genre, it is so dark (both photographically and psychologically) and derivative that at times it seems like a parody. [2 March 1994, p.6F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THIS odd, anachronistic movie is the story of a couple of white guys (Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas) messing around in 19th-century Africa, and a couple of lions who want to eat them. I kept rooting for the lions. The Ghost and The Darkness is not a bad movie, and the scenes with the lions are fearsome. But it is so old-fashioned in its view of British Colonial Africa that you keep expecting Stewart Granger to wander in out of "King Solomon's Mines" (1950). [11 Oct 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Reitman's movie is triumphant and actually deserves being mentioned in the same breath with those great comedies of 50 years ago. [07 May 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Simultaneously enigmatic and painfully direct, melodramatic yet subtle, playful yet tragic, Au Hasard Balthazar is a deeply moving portrait of the sins and mercies of mankind as seen and suffered by an ass. [30 Jul 2004, p.E03]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Hill fans - and I'm one - should find Last Man Standing intriguing, but it's certainly not among his top four or five works. [20 Sep 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
If you're looking for down and dirty, Kiss of Death delivers the goods. [21 Apr 1995, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
This wonderfully wry, painfully funny comedy about a middle-aged boy and his mother is Albert Brooks' most accessible movie. [17 Jan 1997, p.03E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Fitfully, someone will say or do something very funny, but much of the time passes in a rather laborious way. This movie should have been a lot better than it is. [27 Nov 1994, p.9C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The new Clint Eastwood movie, Pink Cadillac, might approach mediocrity if it were about half an hour shorter. At almost two hours, it is, to paraphrase a line in the movie, Snooze City. [26 May 1989, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A generally entertaining Western with some striking images, Young Guns II is significantly better than the original Young Guns. [02 Aug 1990, p.4E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The world Nair shows us is, on the whole, an unpleasant one, but there is never any sense of false melodrama or of the camera selecting only shocking or hopeless images. And as a whole, the film documents how difficult it is to defeat the human spirit. [24 Mar 1989, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Warren Beatty's new tour de force about the ax-jawed detective is generally fun to watch. Visually, it's brilliant. Dramatically, it's OK. [15 Jun 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
But what The Paper does best is capture the flavor of a newsroom at its craziest, when, say, you are five minutes past deadline on a breaking story, it's July and the air conditioning is broken, two editors are yelling contradictory commands at you and a workman is standing on your desk putting holes in the ceiling with a deafening electric drill. [25 March 1994, p.3H]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THANKS to the boys of summer - nine wonderful child actors - and a sweetly nostalgic story well told by writer-director David Mickey Evans, The Sandlot is a winner. [9 Apr 1993, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THIS is one tough movie....When its uncompromising final scene has faded, we are emotionally shattered, left with some inkling of how the citizens of Salem, Mass., must have felt 300 years ago, after a reign of self-righteous, hysterical, scapegoating terror had swept through their claustrophobic town, sending a significant portion of its tiny population to the gallows, or worse. [20 Sept 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Despite a solid cast and a few interesting visual moments, Surviving the Game is just a routine action picture. [21 Apr 1994, p.5G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
This convoluted tale of a U.S. Treasury agent (Wesley Snipes) looking for the rats who killed one of his partners simmers along fairly well for about 45 minutes and then gets all lukewarm and fuzzy. [21 Apr 1993, p.6F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THE LAIR of the White Worm is an extremely silly and rather bloody movie. If you are willing to accept it as a tacky spoof of tacky horror movies, you should find it funny - at times, downright hilarious. [3 Feb 1989, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Thanks in great part to a couple of dozen wonderful soul songs from the 1960s, and a very engaging and talented group of young Dubliners, The Commitments is a thorough delight - warm, funny and deeply human. [13 Sep 1991, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Ultimately, however, the only real problem with the new version of "The Getaway" is that Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger just don't seem very believable as tough professional criminals. You just know they are only a shower and a manicure away from dinner at Spago. [11 Feb 1994, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Since the movie never really gets very far beneath the skin of these immensely talented people, their battles and her final victory seldom rise above the level of moderately entertaining melodrama. [11 Jun 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Remarkable...For All Mankind is a lovely film. Brian Eno's soundtrack is majestic without being overly sentimental, and Reinert's choice of images ranges skillfully from the ironically ordinary - astronauts eating, listening to country music and teasing one another about personal quirks - to the awe inspiring. [2 Feb 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The movie is a little too long, and sinks briefly into the doldrums when it turns overly serious in the last half hour or so. But Little Big League recovers nicely, and the ending is terrific. This is one of the few recent movies that parents and children would enjoy together. [03 Jul 1994, p.16C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
AFTER the first 10 minutes or so, there are few surprises in The Package. But director Andrew Davis, given a suspense script with little actual suspense in it, keeps this espionage tale moving right along, and Gene Hackman, as usual, is a plus. The result is a moderately entertaining if predictable action film. [25 Aug 1989, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Twenty or 25 minutes of good air-action sequences, otherwise dull. [17 Jun 1990, p.7F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A generally entertaining schmaltzy melodrama, as long as you are not overly reverent about traditional versions of the Arthurian legend and can get over William Nicholson's sometimes clumsy dialogue. [07 Jul 1995, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The movie is enjoyable if it isn't taken too seriously. Geena Davis sparkles as a TV reporter who is among those rescued, Chevy Chase is amusing in an uncredited role as a TV executive and Garcia is, as usual, both charming and believable, in a movie-star kind of way. Hoffman is always interesting to watch, even when, as in this movie, he reminds us a little too much of some of the other roles on his resume. [04 Oct 1992, p.12C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The Rescuers Down Under is further evidence that the Disney organization has regained its magic touch with animated features. [16 Nov 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Richard III is a movie, and a marvelously entertaining one. McKellen calls it a "translation." It is also a homage to Shakespeare, and to the enduring power and universality of his unrivaled genius. [02 Feb 1996, p.1E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Stallone starring in a comedy? Absolutely. Furthermore, it's a terrific comedy. Oscar is a fast-moving, highly stylized, very entertaining farce that is played as a combination of comic opera (complete with numerous soundtrack references to The Barber of Seville) and Depression-era zany comedy. [26 Apr 1991, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Sean Penn is excellent as a lawyer who gets in way over his modish curls, but the movie belongs to Pacino, who gives a remarkably controlled performance as a Wise Guy desperately trying to get smart. It's one of Pacino's best roles. [12 Nov 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The problem with In Praise of Love is not that it seems to be possessed by a kind of free floating anti-Americanism. I'm not all that crazy about some of the things this country does, either, and I detest some of the big-budget movies Hollywood makes. The problem with In Praise of Love is that it never shuts up. [1 Nov 2002, p.E4]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
WITH Jungle Fever, a shattering movie that focuses on interracial love andracial hatred but that also confronts a dozen other incendiary topics, Spike Lee confirms his position as the leading American director of his generation. [7 June 1991, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
In this year's stupid sexy screamer, Sliver, [Stone] tries to reveal some of her character's mind. But there's nothing in there but cotton candy and foggy images from old soap operas. [23 May 1993, p.12C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
This amiable, poky one-joke movie - Bill Murray is saddled with an elephant - gets brief jolts of comic energy when Matthew McConaughey shows up as a manic truck driver. Otherwise, it's got a few laughs, and could use a few more. [02 Nov 1996, p.51]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
This summer's first really bad major movie has finally arrived, and it's time to celebrate. There's been a lot of mediocrity, but until Color of Night there'd been nothing deeply rotten on the grand scale of "Last Action Hero" or "Hudson Hawk." [19 Aug 1994, p.9F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a terrible movie. For the first 20 minutes or so, it is so far over the top in its pseudo-mythic urban cowboy way that it is at least entertainingly terrible. [23 Aug 1991, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The overall direction of the movie may be strongly polemical, but its real strength comes from the resonance of a hundred subtle moments. [04 May 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Taken as low comedy, Army of Darkness is fairly successful. The violence, although there is plenty of it, seems even more cartoonish and less gory than in the earlier movies. I have a feeling boys of about 11 or 12, with their normal penchant for bad puns and gross-out tactics, would be the most likely audience for this silliness, which often has the feel of an old "Tales From the Crypt" comic book. [19 Feb 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
This droll, leisurely paced movie might alternately be titled "The Only Good Man in Africa." [09 Sep 1994, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The Wedding Banquet is sweet and touching and, at times, very funny. [27 Aug 1993, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The suspense trickles out of A Kiss Before Dying in the first 10 or 15 minutes, and the movie just lies there until the final 10 or 15 minutes. Writer-director James Dearden tries to inject life into the long, slow middle with blood, breasts and buttocks, but we never sense that any of these attributes belongs to actual breathing human beings. [26 Apr 1991, p.5F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
One of the wildest and funniest satires since the original Airplane. [15 Jun 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A SURPRISING number of good, long, serious, thought-provoking movies have opened in the past few weeks. This isn't one of them. But if you're looking for a break from heavy fare, this fluffy serving of junk food might be just right. [12 Nov 1993]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Don't let anyone off the hook. That's a basic rule of good satire, and on the whole Amos & Andrew follows it. The result is a generally amusing, occasionally hilarious send-up of racial posturing in America. [05 Mar 1993, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Finally, in Strange Days, written by ex-husband James Cameron and Jay Cocks, she has a script that is worthy of her intense and intensely personal visual style. The result is a mind-blowing visionary thriller set on the last day of the 20th century in smoldering Los Angeles, a kind of "Blade Runner" for the millennium. [13 Oct 1995, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The overt sexuality of Madonna's stage show, particularly the lengthy exercise in self-stimulation called Like a Virgin, as well as the sometimes startling bluntness of her talk, keeps the movie from being totally boring. But this kind of trash can only sustain itself for so long - for most of us, about as long as it takes to get through the line at a supermarket. [17 May 1991, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Taken as mindless entertainment, "Chain Reaction" is a cut or two below "Independence Day" and a couple of cuts above "Fled." It's a little better than "Eraser," not as good as "The Rock." [2 Aug 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
It is one of those movies that seem to be meandering to no real purpose, and yet, very slowly, take hold of your emotions. By the end, you find yourself rather astonished at how much you care about what happens to the characters. [9 Oct 1992, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
IF you can accept the notion of a sympathetic character who is also a hit man - in other words, if you went along with the game in "Pulp Fiction" and "Bulletproof Heart" - you should enjoy 2 Days in the Valley, a fast-moving, sometimes violent, sometimes sexy, sometimes surprisingly funny story of crime and romance in the San Fernando Valley. [27 Sept 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
IF you loved ''Hairspray,'' you'll probably like ''Cry-Baby.'' John Waters' latest teen-age musical spoof is entertaining. But it lacks some of the satiric edge that made ''Hairspray'' rather outrageous, although it was quite tame compared to some of Waters' earlier movies. [6 Apr 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
THOROUGHLY predictable "inspirational" movies like Rudy are like pop-art rituals. We know almost to the letter what is going to happen, but, if the movie is well made (which "Rudy" is), we experience at least some of the emotional catharsis that would be evoked by a truly original and compelling work of art (which "Rudy" definitely isn't). [15 Oct 1993, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Sometimes brilliantly original, at other times dull and formulaic, Mo' Better Blues is well worth seeing - for jazz and Spike Lee fans, it's a must-see - but it often fails to engage us on a deep emotional level. [03 Aug 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A generally absorbing, sometimes harrowing look at the violent rise of twin brothers named Kray to the top of the London underworld. [09 Nov 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Ruby in Paradise is a fine, quietly moving look at a young woman's voyage of discovery. It is most memorable for the feature-film debut of Ashley Judd in the title role, but the rest of the cast is excellent, as well, and Gregory Nunez (Gal Young 'Un) directs from his own script with heartfelt clarity. [26 Nov 1993, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Great works of literature seldom become great movies, as witness the competent but plodding recent screen adaptation of Wharton's "Ethan Frome." The Age of Innocence is a brilliant exception. [17 Sept 1993, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Among the pleasures of "Ghosts of Mississippi" is the rare chance to see Goldberg, who is such a fine actress, in a serious role. [03 Jan 1997, p.E03]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The Glimmer Man starts out like Seven, but pretty soon it dwindles into nothing. [09 Oct 1996, p.5D]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Candy breaks out of his goofball mold and delivers a solid performance as a lonely Chicago cop who can't pull loose from his domineering mother. The major flaw in Only the Lonely is that the mother (Maureen O'Hara) is such a vicious, whining, manipulative bigot that it is hard to care about her when the inevitable turnabout comes, or see why Candy doesn't just pull out his service revolver and blow her away. [24 May 1991, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Next of Kin is a fast-paced, crisply directed, very entertaining genre movie. It has a lot more style and wit than most of the serious fare that's around. [25 Oct 1989, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The Good Son is cheaply manipulative in a way that can make you angry. [24 Sep 1993, p.3EV]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The elements never quite combine into a cohesive compound, and a lot of the dialogue - particularly Calamity Jane's - might have worked on the page, or even on the stage, but has a phony theatricality when uttered by people with cameras in their faces. [01 Dec 1995, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Texasville is much less memorable than The Last Picture Show, but it is well worth seeing, particularly if you loved the original movie and are curious about what happened to the people in it. There are some slow spots, but not too many. And there are more laughs than tears, although, as country music fans know, it is often hard to tell the difference. [28 Oct 1990, p.6C]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The movie is going to make a lot of people mad, too - the ones who liked the book. If you missed Tom Wolfe's scathingly satirical best seller about the greedy society of the 1980s, you will probably find yourself bored by the tepid, badly miscast screen version. You may leave the theater a little confused as to why there was so much controversy during the filming of what turns out to be a silly, almost innocuous Hollywood farce. [21 Dec 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A FEW mildly erotic soft-core sex scenes separated by long stretches of very pretentious, bad dialogue and some travelogue shots of Carnival in Rio: That's about it for Wild Orchid. [25 May 1990, p.6F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The River Wild is an exhilarating thriller, and Streep is memorable as a former whitewater river guide who has to summon up all of her old skills to save her life and the lives of her husband (David Straithairn) and son (Joseph Mazzello). [30 Sep 1994, p.3G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
It takes awhile for the contemporary moviegoer to adapt to the deliberate pace and the lack of dialogue, but ''Sidewalk Stories'' becomes harder and harder to resist as it goes along, and the ending in a small park filled with homeless people is quite effective. [11 Jan 1990, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
A beautiful movie, probably more erotic than any mainstream film ever made and yet never remotely pornographic, at other times hilariously funny. [05 Oct 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
One of the best adult suspense films of the year. [28 Sept 1990, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
Farewell My Concubine is a work of passion and compassion, another great work by one of the so-called fifth-generation of directors who are making the Chinese cinema one of the best in the world. [29 Oct 1993, p.3F]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The Secret of Roan Inish glows with a misty, lyrical beauty, helped no little by the cinematography of Haskell Wexler. Once again, writer-director Sayles ("Passion Fish") succeeds in creating a mature, complex film that touches the heart without using any Hollywood tricks. [14 Apr 1995, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
The central question of Trees Lounge is whether Tommy will ever get wise to himself. The movie does not exactly provide an answer to the question, but Buscemi poses it in an entertaining, insightful and humane way. [24 Oct 1996, p.4G]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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- Harper Barnes
FOR about an hour, this movie is like a smooth ride with a good cabbie through the winding streets of deepest lower Manhattan. It's a fascinating, disturbing, at times exhilarating look at the way politics work in a big city, and you better pay attention or you'll miss something...Then, something happens, and it's like being lost on some triple-decker expressway interchange with no idea of how to get home. I think the problem is that there were too many writers with too many different ideas of what they wanted to tell, and the result is it eventually takes a wrong turn into an emotional and intellectual muddle...That first hour is so terrific, with minor exceptions, and the cast is so good, that "City Hall" is still well worth seeing, but ultimately it may leave you with the empty feeling of lost opportunities. [16 Feb 1996, p.3E]- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
