City by the Sea ** (2002, Robert De Niro, James Franco, Frances McDormand) – Classic Movie Review 1430

Director Michael Caton-Jones’s 2002 character-driven thriller is interesting and sometimes involving, but often surprisingly shaky. Ken Hixon writes the slightly struggling screenplay from an article, Mark of a Murderer by Mike McAlary.

Well it’s more of a generation-gap angst drama than a thriller really, with Robert De Niro off his best form in a too-familiar role as a troubled cop, Vincent LaMarca, who discovers that his son Joey (a young James Franco) has been accused of murder, and tries to get to him before the  other cops do.

Loner Vincent enjoys a successful career with the NYPD in Manhattan but his murder investigation is drawing him home to Long Beach, the self-proclaimed City by the Sea.

De Niro, it turns out, too obviously and conveniently, had problems with his own father, like his son does with him – you know the sins of the father and all that. It emerges that Vincent LaMarca’s father was executed for a 1950s kidnapping of a child.

The 24-year-old Franco is handed a decent role but he is surprisingly forlorn, and gives a desperately underpowered performance. Frances McDormand is wasted, and not particularly good either, as De Niro’s lover Michelle, but Patti LuPone lights up the screen in a couple of scenes as his raging ex-wife.

City by the Sea is even more disappointing when you consider the high quality of De Niro and Michael Caton-Jones’s previous collaboration, This Boy’s Life, in 1993.

A special cast helps to be watchable: Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe, John Doman, Brian Tarantina, Drena De Niro (Robert’s adopted daughter), Michael P Moran, Nestor Serrano, Matthew Cowles, Linda Emond, Cyrus Farmer, Anson Mount and George Dzundza are among them.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1430

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