Vida de Cidade

"City of Hope": Let writer/director John Sayles pull you into one huge, HUGE, swirling Swirling SWIRLING mmmMMesSsmEEEesSSSMsmeSss of corruption. A big city has all the typical problems. Everyone operates realistically – i.e., you scratch my back, maybe I'll scratch yours. Right and wrong are lost concepts. Social and political survival tactics are practiced by the hunters and the hunted. No one is clean. Deals are made. Victims are collateral damage. It is a realistic story, with slightly enlarged dramatic characters. You won't laugh. (P.S. - See John Sayles film "The Secret of Roan Inish". It is nothing like "City of Hope" but it's amazing and wonderful.)

Like another Sayles film, Matewan, this really is one of the little known very solid films of our time. This precursor for Crash is a compelling look at the substantial impact strangers may have on each other.

While the acting is at times somewhat melodramatic, the direction of the film is typical of the brilliant Sayles. The film contains some very interesting tracking shots where inter-connected characters unwittingly enter and exit each other's lives.

Unfortunately, the film's title often has it mistaken for the awful "City of Joy" featuring Patrick Swayze

A fantastic movie. Superb. Excellent. A keeper. I am definitely going to rent and re-view Brother from Another Planet. Ensemble type of movie. Low-key score. Dead on performances--everybody tight and sticking to the story, no histrionics or dopey movie-star closeups. If there's a continuum of corruption movies with On the Waterfront on one extreme (intrusive score, ridiculous script, pandering to gorgeous movie stars) and Hands Over the City on the other (realistic portrayal of life with Rod Steiger and lots of extras), then this movie was closer to Hands Over the City. It's not neo-realism, but the way in which everyone's history haunts and thwarts them was excellent. And of course, the last scene is something to rewind and watch over and over again.

No, not the Patrick Swayze movie about India . . . that was *City of Joy*. This film, however, is also about one of the urban nightmares of our time-namely, New Jersey. A John Sayles tour-de-force (he wrote, directed, edited, and plays the most venal character), in which five story lines involving more than thirty characters seamlessly intertwine in a horrifying portrait of corruption, deceit, and cynicism in modern America. The ensemble cast is outstanding, and the screenplay rarely hits a false note.

John Sayles knows how to write a movie. More than that, however, Sayles knows how to compose such a fantastic ending to a movie. He can weave concepts and ideas from scene to scene and from character to character showing us all the different shades of the spectrum while still maintaining a mostly unbiased view of politics and corruption. In Sayles' City of Hope, this is no different, and I am not surprised that as I peruse through it's film page that less then 2,000 people have viewed this cinematic genius at work. Throughout the film, we are introduced to an easy count of 30 characters, who we can understand and compare, whether they're on screen for one hour or one minute. Vincent Spano and Joe Morton hold the most ground and screen time while never letting the viewer down on their performance. While Tony Lo Bianco and John Sayles are nothing short of brilliant in their roles as well. But above them all, David Straithairn subtly steals the show with one helluva performance that we never take full notice of until the incredible ending.

I love how Sayles gave himself and Kevin Tighe the ugliest characters in the film (after seeing him do so well in Sayles earlier masterpiece, Matewan). All I can say is that this film is absolutely worth watching. It reminds us (as it reminded me) how badly society needs help and how problems don't go away until it is finally realized that such problems exist. The separation between social classes is apparent and it is also the major issue that Sayles weaves in and out of most of his character motives. Racial slurs, bigotry, prejudice, and politics are all where Sayles points the blame in this film.

And by the end, Sayles has us wanting more as we see the lowest and most unnoticed character in the entire film shout for help and is totally unheard. 10/10