Bridget Fonda Movie:

Editorial Review:
This complex 1996 drama directed by Harold Becker (Sea of Love) attempts to explore big-city corruption and the flexibility of what's right and wrong in the political arena. John Cusack (Say Anything) plays the senior aide to mayor John Pappas (Al Pacino), a popular and seasoned politician whose administration is threatened when what seems to be an accidental shooting of a child reveals a nest of corruption and lifelong personal debts that tests Cusack's loyalty to the man he thought he knew. Pacino turns in a finely textured performance as a man who has his own lofty ideals, but whose pragmatism sets in motion a series of events with tragic results. Cusack admirably captures the essence of someone polished and savvy at his job who must cope with fundamental disillusionment. This political thriller suffers at times from a lack of focus, but still offers an insightful and poignant treatise on the quagmire of politics in the modern age and the human toll it sometimes exacts. --Robert Lane

City Hall [Region 2] Reviews:
A good subject but the rhythm of a TV film
2008-10-12 - The film concerns a classic theme. In fact it concerns the theme exploited by Batman, from beginning to end, but in real data and details. The mayor of New York, appreciated and very diligent and dynamic, in order to get some project through slightly faster than normal, yields to some pressure from some private business contractors about a criminal drug dealer who should have been sent and kept in prison and he pressurizes the judge in his turn to set him free on probation in spite of a negative probation report that disappears but is not destroyed, be it only because of the political value it represents. And what was to happen happens and a few people, including a black schoolboy is killed in a shoot out between a police detective and that criminal. The city may explode because of it: racial tension because of the black school boy and social tension because of the insecurity such criminals free to roam around and go on with their criminal activities represent to the public. Unluckily the film does not show that tension very well and follows the investigation of the first deputy mayor who wants to find out the truth and does find it out. But along the way a few witnesses are killed, and those who had played some role in the whole business are forced to retire (the judge), to end their career and life (the contractor or the contractor's go between), a public officer who was ready to deliver the disappeared probation report, and some shady character after he provides some crucial information. The mayor himself retires and takes a long vacation; But the main interest of the film is in the exploration of the contortions the mayor is doing to cover up the problem and the contortions he remembers having done in the past that led to the mistake about this probation case. The political philosophy that nothing is pure white or pure black and that everything is grey which is never comfortable to decision makers is invoked as an excuse for wrong but profitable decisions. We are not speaking of necessary compromises to get to some consensus in some domains that are crucial to public interest. We are speaking of considering as less important to take a bad decision about some petty or supposedly petty criminal than some infrastructure or economic project in the city. That is not typical of New York. That is true in any mayoral office. It is just more significant in quantity and in quality in a big metropolitan area like New York and of course in a city or country where police departments are municipal and are controlled by political imperatives. The young deputy mayor is thus pushing the old mayor out of the way, and he derails his ambition to be the governor of New York in order to become the president of the US. The mayor is perfect due to the embodiment Al Pacino offers us since he is able to express ten minutes of dialogue with one facial expression that makes the whole dialogue useless. I find the end slightly mushy with the ex-deputy mayor campaigning in his own name. That seems to mean that he was so attached to justice because he saw his chance to push the mayor out of his own way. Hence he is not better than all the others, just still too young in his ambition.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines


i love this movie
2008-10-07 - I love John Cusack in this movie. It's the space between the handshake... That was really good. they were fabulous. I loved it.

Al Pacino overacts?!
2008-04-28 - My pal Al has been my favorite actor ever since I saw his amazing performance in Heat and it bothers me when people say that all he does is yell in his movies rather than give a credible performance. It bothers me because they usually pick the wrong movies to single out . In the case of City Hall he gives a very nuanced and touching performance throughout that is ruined by a speech that is pure Pacino. The script which was written by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas) and two other gentlemen concerns corruption in the Big Apple. Pacino is mayor John Pappas, John Cusack his deputy mayor, Danny Aiello a union boss who despite being a man of the people is tied in with a mobster, and Bridget Fonda as a crusading investigator who is trying to prove every one's corruption and clear a few names while she is at it. The story is this a rogue cop is meeting with a drug dealer without the benefit of backup or a bulletproof vest. His informant is the drug dealer's cousin and when all three of them surprise each other shots are fired and the cop and drug dealer die while a six year old boy is also killed in the crossfire. This is a tragedy that the mayor has to address and that the deputy mayor has to spend the entire movie trying to piece together. Whose bullet the cop's or the drug dealer's killed the kid? Why was the cop there against orders and without any backup or protection? Why is the drug dealer walking the streets when his crimes would ordinarily send him to prison for years? The answers that slowly come are nothing shocking or revelatory. Corruption exists in government and even well respected mayors or judges might have a hand in it. The scene that I speak of takes place at the young boy's funeral. The mayor (Pacino) has been advised not to go there and if he must go to say only a few words and then leave. This being a Pacino movie why say a few meaningless words when Al can yell which is exactly what he does. The boy was black and the church is an all black one which only adds to the scene since this passionate kind of speech is not out of place. It could be something from Scarface or any other Pacino film as it starts out somber and moves to optimistic before finally erupting into full blown Pacino rage. Al can do this better than anyone but it seriously detracts from his overall performance because it is too easy to say he's yelling rather than acting which he does beautifully in the film's final scene between him and Cusack. By this time Cusack knows the truth and wants answers from the mayor and Pacino plays the scene like he is Cusack's father and he is devastated to learn that his son no longer needs him or trusts him. The film is not bad despite a confusing and not too original story but it is worth it to see the performances of Pacino, Cusack, and Danny Aiello.

City Hall
2007-11-13 - A solid film and a step up from another John Cusack political drama, the decent but yuppie-themed "True Colors." Cusack's character is the deputy mayor of NYC, aka the ambitious mayor's,(Al Pacino) right hand man. A shooting in Brooklyn leaves three people dead which culminates into a Willie Horton type legal & media crisis for the mayor's office. Cusack teams up with Bridget Fonda, a lawyer for the detectives endowment fund to perform due diligence only to find their digging ends up too close to home. Danny Aiello does a good job as a complicated yet sympathetic Brooklyn councilman; Martin Landau as a bent new york supreme court judge and former law partner of the mayor; Richard Schiff as a probation supervisor; and David Paymer as a top city hall advisor. Snappy intelligent dialogue, Pacino is rarely better.

"The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know." ~ Harry Truman

City Hall
2006-12-27 - A decent and somewhat entertaining movie about political corruption in New York, this movie arguably would have been a total flop were it not for Pacino and Cusack. I feel that the amount of killing is a little excessive and lends to the general pradicability of the plot. It was worth watching once, but I doubt I'll ever feel compelled to do so again.