Rating: 
Summary: Good but I expected more
Review: "City Hall" is one of those movies that I watched expecting the best. It had a great cast and crew of which I have seen excellent films from. But all I got in the end was a lukewarm film. The premise is great. Political corruption always makes for an interesting movie and it certainly is interesting. Sadly it suffers from its own plot. So much time is spent trying to uncover this scandal that occurs in this film that there is no time to get to know any of the characters. Al Pacino plays the mayor of New York and while he handles the role passionately the script does not allow his character anytime to develop as with Cusak, Fonda, Aiello. The cast is supurb. In fact I do not believe I have seen better from John Cusak who rarely gets a stab at complex films such as this and Bridget Fonda and Danny Aiello both give excellent supporting performances. The intereaction between Cusak and Fonda also seemed really fake as well not by the actors fault but the screenwriters. There is no chemestry where one would expect. It isn't all that bad of a film. Fans of the actors should definately rent it especially for a really good Pacino monologue (they had to throw that in somewhere). The film had the director and the cast but what it needed was a better script.
Rating:
Summary: Good but I expected more
Review: "City Hall" is one of those movies that I watched expecting the best. It had a great cast and crew of which I have seen excellent films from. But all I got in the end was a lukewarm film. The premise is great. Political corruption always makes for an interesting movie and it certainly is interesting. Sadly it suffers from its own plot. So much time is spent trying to uncover this scandal that occurs in this film that there is no time to get to know any of the characters. Al Pacino plays the mayor of New York and while he handles the role passionately the script does not allow his character anytime to develop as with Cusak, Fonda, Aiello. The cast is supurb. In fact I do not believe I have seen better from John Cusak who rarely gets a stab at complex films such as this and Bridget Fonda and Danny Aiello both give excellent supporting performances. The intereaction between Cusak and Fonda also seemed really fake as well not by the actors fault but the screenwriters. There is no chemestry where one would expect. It isn't all that bad of a film. Fans of the actors should definately rent it especially for a really good Pacino monologue (they had to throw that in somewhere). The film had the director and the cast but what it needed was a better script.
Rating: 
Summary: City Hall
Review: Al Pacino is Pappas, the first great Greek mayor of New York City in this overly complex ploitical thriller hinting at the rot underlying big-city politics. Though the advertising and packaging of the movie focus on Pacino, the real hero is John Cusack as Kevin Calhoun, a Louisiana transplant who lives to be Mayor's eyes and ears. Calhoun's Louisiana background hints at Huey-Long style politics and a massively powerful and successful political future of his own, but for the moment, he's jumping for bullets aimed at the Mayor. We're supposed to see the city as Calhoun's biggest test - he's savy enough about politics, but New Yorkers with their Yiddishisms just baffle him. Unfortunately, the city plainly baffles the people who made this movie. The story begins with a street shootout on a rainy day involving a recently released con. The sentencing judge, the PO and the city's political bosses discover their own dirty acts as Cuisack follows the trail. People die mysteriously and the hints of organized crime remain fairly visible. But there's no story, only a bunch of scenes (not enough containing Pacino) hinting at the political rot, but no connetcing plot. By the time credits roll, you're not sure what you've seen or who should take the consequences. The flick boasts some top-flight talent (Cusack and Pacino, Martin Landau as the embattled judge, but also Danny Aiello as the political boss, the underrated David Paymer and Bridget Fonda), but they do nothing more than float through the movie. It's not clear if Fonda is supposed to be Cusack's foil, love interest or the charachter that gets Cusack to step out of others' shadows and become the leader he knows he can be. Little of the film comes together, but it's still worth a view.
Rating:
Summary: See it for Pacino
Review: Al Pacino is Pappas, the first great Greek mayor of New York City in this overly complex ploitical thriller hinting at the rot underlying big-city politics. Though the advertising and packaging of the movie focus on Pacino, the real hero is John Cusack as Kevin Calhoun, a Louisiana transplant who lives to be Mayor's eyes and ears. Calhoun's Louisiana background hints at Huey-Long style politics and a massively powerful and successful political future of his own, but for the moment, he's jumping for bullets aimed at the Mayor. We're supposed to see the city as Calhoun's biggest test - he's savy enough about politics, but New Yorkers with their Yiddishisms just baffle him. Unfortunately, the city plainly baffles the people who made this movie. The story begins with a street shootout on a rainy day involving a recently released con. The sentencing judge, the PO and the city's political bosses discover their own dirty acts as Cuisack follows the trail. People die mysteriously and the hints of organized crime remain fairly visible. But there's no story, only a bunch of scenes (not enough containing Pacino) hinting at the political rot, but no connetcing plot. By the time credits roll, you're not sure what you've seen or who should take the consequences. The flick boasts some top-flight talent (Cusack and Pacino, Martin Landau as the embattled judge, but also Danny Aiello as the political boss, the underrated David Paymer and Bridget Fonda), but they do nothing more than float through the movie. It's not clear if Fonda is supposed to be Cusack's foil, love interest or the charachter that gets Cusack to step out of others' shadows and become the leader he knows he can be. Little of the film comes together, but it's still worth a view.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but Skimpy
Review: Audio: Very Good, Dolby 2.0 Surround Video: Very Good Extras: Languages, Wide and Full Screen, Subtitles, Web, Scene Index (not full motion) Brash Deputy Mayor rubs gagngland noses in it while proclaiming "You gotta' be willing to be lucky." The score and sound effects never really challenge your speakers, but everything sounds clean and clear. The video is very good, although there are not a lot of dark scenes. The dark scenes tend to be the most affected by poor transfer quality. Matted widescreen. French. Extras? Nope, but the movie is pretty good, so for the price, this is a good DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Practice Run
Review: Composer Jerry Goldsmiith's score for the drama City Hall is a real letdown. It sounds a lot like the music he would use later for LA Confidential. Sure, there are a few subtle differences here and there, but for the most part, the scores are too similar for my tastes. I am not used to Goldsmith doing this all that much. Even the stuff of his that isn't quite as good, usaully has some originality to it. The music for City Hall must have been a warm up for the latter film I mentioned. Most of the City Hall soundtrack spends its limited running time just reworking the main title-this tactic is not uncommon in a majority of film music-to use a certain amount of repetition-it's just usually not done this much for a single film. Horns, piano, and the drum are pretty much it. The CD has 12 tracks and a running time of 30:14. My recommendation would be be to skip this, and seek out the the 2 soundtrack albums for LA Confidential, instead. At least the score sounds a bit more developed and there's a bit more musical variety
Rating:
Summary: American Politics
Review: Good film that shows how a once idealilist politian gets engulfed with power and becomes corrupt. Sad but true about american politics. The politians will do whatever they can to stay on top legal or illegal. Pacino was excellent as he always is. Cusack was great as the deputy mayor who uncovers the conspricy. The film shows how politians fall from grace so easily.
Rating:
Summary: Bogged down in the bureaucracy..
Review: Harold Becker is a director you can trust, that is, if you're Al Pacino. If you're just some stiff with $8.00 for a movie ticket, then 'let the buyer beware' should be your credo. I am not a big Pacino fan, feeling he only plays one character well, and that one I'm way past tired. John Cusack, on the other hand, is a different story. Next to him Pacino has a good chance of looking good here, and he does. What Bridget Fonda or her character is doing, I have no idea. The role she plays here is so meaningless you have to wonder if she put some money in the picture herself. In the fast moving world of Hollywood's careers, one rarely recovers from this Waterworld sized mistake. She gets her mortgage paid, I'm sure, but we get absolutely nothing in return. The on-screen chemistry between Fonda and Cusack rivals the Jodie Foster-Matthew McConaghey pairing in "Contact", (or Lisa Marie Presley and anybody), for lack of heat. The story? Who knows? It wanders aimlessly (like New York City bureaucracy) to an unsatisfactory, or no real conclusion (like New York City bureaucracy). If the purpose was to show us that even those with best of intentions...(can't get anything done) well we know that already. Maybe that there is a fine line between the good guys and the bad guys...but we know that already. That a Harold Becker movie will leave you less than satisfied....we know that already.
Rating:
Summary: A Rich but Messy film
Review: I liked City Hall quite a bit. I liked the furniture, I liked the art direction, I like the scene between Al Pacino and Danny Aiello at the break of a broadway a show. I liked the new york talk, the politics, the media maneuvering. So why the hell do I feel short changed by this movie. It works as an average thiller but that's not what its supposed to be about. I felt it was way to get things going (all the shooting , tha mafia etc..) to stay away from what is really interesting, the mayor, the backstage business of being mayor. Had the movie stayed with that it would have much more than an average thriller, but Al Pacino (the mayor) is a supporting character for a good two thirds of this movie, which is precisely the problem with it.
Rating:
Summary: Loved It, But It Was Missing Something . . . . .
Review: I really wanted to love this movie. It was beautifully written. Pacino's speeches as the mayor of New York City were powerful and full of melodrama . . . the good kind of melodrama that made you realize that he was manipulating everyone until the very end. Cusack was great in this movie that gave him a chance to show off his superb acting skills. He completely takes on the persona of the naive politican from Louisana who realizes that the fine web of political intrigue he's in the middle of may be the trap that destoys him and New York. Bridget Fonda also stars as a lawyer wholly devoted to getting justice for her client, the wife of a murdered police officer. As I said, I wanted to love this movie, but I never really got a chance to identify with the characters. But, on the other hand, that may have been the idea all along. A great realistic drama, that I would recommend to see at least once.
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