City Hall. - movie reviews

National Review, April 8, 1996 by John Simon

HAD T. S. Eliot written nothing else beyond "human kind cannot bear very much reality," he would have earned his berth among the immortals. Why is it that sex and violence dominate our screens? Because we are all closet erotomaniacs and sadomasochists? No; it is because sex and violence are forms of escapism.

Yes, escapism almost as in those old movies about tropical paradises, virtuous secretaries who find Mr. Right in their bosses, or madcap families that inherit millions from unknown uncles. The truth -- even in sex and violence -- is fairly mundane and ultimately boring. Movie sex and violence are generally just as unreal as the various Crosby - Hope - Lamour itineraries. But by being sadistic, lascivious, somehow "forbidden," they are turned into exciting, iconoclastic verities. If they were shown as they really are, which happens all too rarely, they would become part of that reality of which human kind cannot bear very much.

These things occur to me apropos of City Hall, a film that purports to tell the intricate and chilling truths about New York City politics. It is the story of John Pappas, a charismatic mayor, and his favorite deputy, bright and eager Kevin Calhoun from Louisiana -- a most unlikely provenance for a Big Apple politico. Also Frank Anselmo, Brooklyn borough leader of the Democratic Party, a shrewdly efficient Mafia-connected charmer; Paul Zapotti, the smilingly sinister Mafia godfather; Walter Stern, a seemingly outstanding judge; and a lawyer for the Detectives' Endowment Association trying to help a slain cop's widow, played by Bridget Fonda -- so much for credibility. It all begins when a little black boy is killed in the crossfire between a policeman and a Mafioso, who end up offing each other. But the prime victim here is the truth.

The film centers on the quasi - father-and-son relationship of Pappas and the idealistically worshipful Calhoun, who narrates the film, tracks down the guilty (including Pappas), and comes bittersweetly of age. Any number of articles have been published telling what real-life figures some of these characters were based on, and how facts have been distorted in both big and small ways. This despite -- or because -- the initial script was by Ken Lipper, a deputy mayor under Ed Koch, the revision by the film-noir director Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese's favorite scriptwriter, Nicholas Pileggi, and the re-revision by Bo Goldman, author of such successes as Melvin and Howard. Whatever the initial broth may have been, there were clearly too many cooks. Or too few; perhaps God was needed as co-pilot.

Two related excesses are all I wish to dwell on in this mediocre movie. First, the writing. The scene of the funeral service for the shot little boy is on a par with the notorious curtain speech at the end of The Red Shoes. Warned against it by sundry associates, Mayor Pappas goes to the black church, where most of the congregation largely blames him for the tragedy, to deliver a eulogy full of nauseatingly high-minded platitudes in a manner as pathetically orotund as no one but Al Pacino could manage. As Pacino then leaves down the center aisle, there is not a hand but stretches out to touch the (figurative) hem of his garments, as though a saint or angel were passing through.

Next, Pacino's performance itself. This once outstanding actor has become a walking encyclopedia of excesses. The face is now a self-serving monument to ravaged magnanimity. The eye sockets are runners-up to the Carlsbad Caverns, and an infinitely sorrowing gaze flickers deep in the bottomless eyes. The cheeks are hollowed with humanitarian concern, the voice reverberates with the sufferings of all the Christian martyrs and several others besides, and the arms gesticulate as though conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. But the hair, the hair is immaculate; sculptured softly, like a piece of Oldenburg statuary, it nevertheless permits a few sincere-looking strands to dislodge themselves in an artful choreography. The role that would befit Pacino most, if only he were younger and taller, would be Saint Sebastian. He seems to be playing it anyway.

When he can remember his accent, John Cusack is good as Kevin Calhoun, and Danny Aiello gives another of his unerringly flavorous performances as Frank Anselmo. But then, alas, there is the score by one of filmdom's most venerable hacks, Jerry Goldsmith. When, if ever, will movie music finally catch up with music?