City by the Sea

The cast and the direction are too good, in the end, for the rather desultory place the movie ends up. Read full review

Notwithstanding a thin script and a color-by-numbers ending, the movie is redeemed by its solid performances.

Frances McDormand and Patti LuPone are solid as his girlfriend and ex-wife, respectively, and James Franco is just right as his wayward son. They're a talented team. Too bad the movie doesn't live up to their abilities. Read full review

That City by the Sea isn't laughed off the screen is testament to Caton-Jones' attention to actors and to some tightly written scenes. Read full review

Stumbles from restrained, fine-edged realism into blunt and muddy melodrama. Read full review

Has trouble seeming real. Its back story, involving the sins of Detective LaMarca's own father, feels contrived and the eventual resolution is simultaneously shaky and too pat. Read full review

The saccharine conclusion would be problematic in any film, but given how much talent is involved, it's especially disappointing here. Read full review

Shot in gloomy shades of gray, this earnest but banal story about the legacy of bad parenting strands fine actors in a contrived situation and lets them squirm. Read full review

A murky, vaguely fact-based melodrama that quickly sinks into the same swamp as such recent De Niro mistakes as "15 Minutes" and "Showtime." Read full review

The changes are meant to make it easier for audiences to accept Vincent's loyalty to Angelo and Joey, but they blunt the genetic mystery that made McAlary's story so compelling in the first place. Read full review

After the complex buildup of tensions, the last ten minutes of the movie are a comic-pathetic letdown: the subdued acting and the trash-strewn street scenes lead to nothing more striking than the kind of overexplicit clichés heard in mediocre TV dramas. Even De Niro's discipline and skill can't save lines that should never have been spoken in the first place. [9 September 2002, p.162]

The biggest shame in this movie is how it wastes Frances McDormand. Read full review

There's nothing wrong with a little creative license, but the abundance of self-serving fabrication in City by the Sea not only diminishes LaMarca's experience and cheapens McAlary's work, it all but desecrates the memory of the real murder victim. Read full review

Robert De Niro and Frances McDormand almost rescue this lifeless, clichéd cop drama! Close isn't good enough! Read full review

De Niro sinks this crime drama with his vacant, inattentive performance as an affectionally challenged homicide detective. Read full review