CITY HALL . Directed by Harold Becker; written by Ken Lipper, Paul Schrader, Nicholas Pileggi and Bo Goldman; produced by Edward R. Pressman, Ken Lipper, Charles Mulvehill and Harold Becker for Castle Rock. Starring John Cusack and Al Pacino. Rated R.
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City Hall is less than the sum of its parts. But some of those parts are awfully good.
The first half, in particular, is a well-made and entertaining look behind the scenes of city government. The scenes set in New York's city hall are actually filmed in the real building, and boast a lot of telling details supplied by writer/producer Lipper, who used to be deputy mayor in the big apple.
We don't just see routine business, though, because the mayor's office is plunged into crisis soon after the movie starts. A child is killed by a stray bullet fired during a mysterious encounter between a cop and a drug dealer, and the unraveling of the story behind this tragedy is the main thread of the movie.
But I have found that, often, when so many writers (4) collaborate on a movie, the product usually ends up in a tangle. And unfortunately, that happens here, too.
Somebody in the committee wanted the suggestion of a romance. So we have Bridget Fonda as an idealistic attorney, not fitting well at all with the rest of the story. Someone else must have liked whodunits, so we also have Kevin (Cusack), the incredibly busy deputy mayor, chasing all over New York State looking for evidence of corruption that he really doesn't want to find.
The worst thing about these wild sidelines is that they take valuable screen time away from relationships and stories that are much more interesting. The centerpiece of the movie, for example, is the surrogate father-son bonding of Pacino as the flamboyantly appealing mayor and Cusack as his "right hand." I wouldn't have minded seeing more of their interaction instead of some of the other silliness.
Danny Aiello, too, as a glad-handing local pol, is just wonderful. Why couldn't we have seen more of him?
All that said, when City Hall is good, it is very good, so you might want to catch it in spite of its failings. Pacino is at his middle-aged best here as the leader who wants to do good, and who does a lot of good, but who also has a little trouble with the old ends-and-means thing. Cusack, also an enormously appealing actor when in the right role, has found one here, and holds his own well in pretty lofty acting company.
Note to gore-sickened moviegoers: there is NOT a lot of it in City Hall, nor too much off-color language either by recent standards. Beginnings of a trend?
March 6, 1996