City Hall (1996)

To me, this movie is perfection.

So much average

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

City Hall is a rather interesting, if not by the books political thriller that highlights the everyday corruption we see in American politics. It's not really eye-opening, but it's relevant in today's world despite the film being made eighteen years ago. This film is not about what happens on the outside, but what happens on the inside. Those who want to study politics may want to check out this film.Harold Becker's film is about how a scandal which involved a dead cop and a dead six-year-old, changed the lives of the mayor and his deputy mayor. The mayor, John Pappas is known for his brilliance and the deputy mayor, Kevin Calhoun is just as smart. But when a lawyer accuses the mayor of corruption, Calhoun must decide whether to follow his idol or to part sides.The acting is pretty good for the most part. Al Pacino has done better roles in his career, but though he seems to not particularly try here, he seems to do an okay job. John Cusack was excellent, and this is one of his better roles of the 90's. I don't understand why Bridget Fonda is in this movie since her character really is of no relevance, but I guess she did fine. Danny Aiello was excellent as the corrupt political boss of Brooklyn.Overall, City Hall is little above average political thriller that is extremely predictable, but still quite enjoyable and thrilling. It tells a good lesson about corruption in politics, but the story could have used some tweaking. But all-in-all, I was able to enjoy the film for what it is: A good, old-fashioned political thriller. I rate this film 8/10.

(Credit IMDb) A young boy dies from a stray bullet during a shootout between a cop and mob family member who had previously been suspiciously given probation, only to break its terms. New York's Deputy Mayor, Kevin Calhoun starts digging for information.It isn't very often that I shut a movie off at 45 minutes in. Especially with a terrific cast like this one. This movie was so boring that I was unable to pay attention. It was extremely talky and failed to engage my interest. A movie with Al Pacino, John Cusack, and Bridget Fonda should not be this boring, plain and simple. Maybe I will give it another try down the road, but I doubt it.

I think this movie is among the best political ones to depict what I lived in France since 10 years and especially the last five ones: what's a corrupt democracy ? In those situations, the elected ones have indeed a fabulous live: for the public, they are real demagogues, making beautiful and moving speeches while in reality, they use their authority and public goods to serve their own private interest. The difference between this movie and my reality is that those American shameful politicians when caught red handed are quick to resign or worst while in my country, they are totally immune. So, beware, this isn't a simple movie: if you miss the beginning, it's hard to understand as the facts are speedy and come from everywhere. Thus, the audience runs in all the NYC boroughs and the movie is really alive and interesting. At last, the casting is wonderful: I never appreciated Aiello and I was happy to see him playing a bastard. Cusac is perfect as a idealistic young man, Bridget was a courageous and sympathetic lawyer and Al gives us something else than to be a cop and i'm sure Vito would be pleased!

Working from a script written in part by Nicholas Pileggi, best known for writing the book Wiseguy, which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas, and for writing the book and screenplay Casino, director Harold Becker shows how connected circles scratch each other's backs, even in the command of a comparatively honorable mayor like Pappas, who is regarded as a presidential prospect. As Cusack follows the paper trail of the dead mobster's probation report, his skepticism is agitated. How did this violent young man get probation rather than a jail sentence? We meet the other players in the plot, not the least of which is Danny Aiello, the political boss of Brooklyn, and Tony Franciosa, the Mafia boss whose nephew was shot dead. How and why these people are affiliated I leave to the movie to divulge, though there are never any misgivings that they are.The narrative is told generally through the eyes of the Cusack character, a visionary from Louisiana who admires his boss and hopes to learn from him. Much is made by everyone of bureaucratic knowledge passed down through the generations. Some of the dialogue is ungracefully erudite, but considering I just described the building blocks of the story as bureaucratic knowledge, one can't say it doesn't work. The shooting case builds against the seasoning of two other issues on the mayor's desk: a charge by Aiello for a subway stop and an off-ramp in Brooklyn to aid a new banking center, and the city's bid for the next Democratic convention. Individual idiosyncrasies are also explored, including Aiello's emotional bond with the music of Rogers and Hammerstein.Much also is made of menschkeit, a Yiddish expression, which, Pappas explains to his deputy, is about the bond of honor between two men, about what happens between the two hands in a handshake. This connection doesn't mean much to Bridget Fonda, the lawyer for the policeman's association who defends the dead cop's honor and fights for his widow's pension even as incriminating evidence appears. Little by little, the deputy mayor comes to grasp that menschkeit is such an influential notion that it outclasses he law.There are various scenes of hard impact, including one where the Brooklyn boss comes home for lunch in the middle of the day, his wife asserts her interest through the medium of the dish she has cooked, and then the Mafia boss drops in by surprise. There is also a compelling, and markedly conjectural, late scene between the mayor and his deputy.One scene handled with delicacy is comprised of the mayor's decision to speak at the funeral of the slain child, in a Harlem church. His advisers tell him he won't be wanted there. But he goes anyway, and cranks himself up for a spiel of unabashed hyperbole, Pacino and his character both.It gets an impressive reaction from the congregation, but the mayor knows, and his deputy knows, that it was artificial, and the way they scrupulously evade discussing it, in the limousine taking them away, is a subtle employment of composure and innuendo. This is a script that knows it has to supply Pacino with the reason why most of his fans go to see him, and immediately follows its quota with the reality that silence has much more inherent meaning than speech.Pacino and Cusack are convincing together throughout the movie, the older man unbreakable and aware, the younger one anxious to learn, but with ideals that don't sway. Pacino is innate with his down-to-earth capacity to marry common sense and inventive imagination, inspired flair and matter-of-fact realism. Cusack moves very freely in spite of his dark defensiveness.The Bridget Fonda subplot development is unnecessary, but it is a result of veteran screenwriter Paul Schrader's otherwise shrewdly perceptive belief in the worth of every character, and each is fleshed into earnest embodiments. Aiello, for instance, is a highlight because he evokes his character's joie de vivre and sensitivity to his environment.