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  • 标题:Reality infuses storyline, makes movie long-winded
  • 作者:Sarah Mason Central Valley
  • 期刊名称:Spokesman Review, The (Spokane)
  • 出版年度:2002
  • 卷号:Sep 16, 2002
  • 出版社:Cowles Publishing Co.

Reality infuses storyline, makes movie long-winded

Sarah Mason Central Valley

City by the Sea / Rated R

Police officer Vincent LaMarca (Robert De Niro) is stuck in a rut, and he likes it that way.

In "City By the Sea," LaMarca goes to work, returns home in the evening to eat a lonely meal, then escorts his girlfriend home from her job (it's New York, after all) and goes to bed.

Behind the rituals of daily life, though, LaMarca is battling his past and trying to avoid creating a future.

LaMarca is the stereotypical male movie lead. He desires no long- term personal partner (or wife), just someone to be with and not get in the way of his demanding job as a cop.

LaMarca's past, however, is not so typical. His father was accused of, and then executed for, murdering a child. LaMarca's guardian happened to be the cop who brought in his father.

So as he grows up, LaMarca doesn't come to hate the man who arrested his father. Instead, he hates his own father for getting the death penalty, rather than spending a normal life with his wife and son.

Now with an estranged ex-wife (Patty Lupone) who knows him as a wife-beater, and a junkie son (James Franco) who doesn't know him at all, LaMarca wants to keep his life the way he's made it, afraid of what mistakes and pain might lie behind any change.

The crime that serves as the plot catalyst is unlike those offered by most of today's films. The murder committed by LaMarca's son, Joey "Nova" (he's named himself after his car) is not planned out, not meticulously battled out and certainly not explosive. It has the same characteristic of the rest of the movie: realism. Caught in the hazy high of cocaine, Joey attempts to fight off a drug dealer and ends up crouching over the man's dead body.

By staging an almost accidental murder, director Michael Caton- Jones has succeeded in creating a feeling of realism. Joey's story and crime seem so believable because he is no superhero battling the evil residing in New York.

As Joey and Michelle (the only woman who stands by LaMarca), Franco and Frances McDormand don't display abnormal human capabilities or characteristics. Franco's Joey does not act out any sick, drug-induced crimes. McDormand's Michelle does not preform fantastical stunts to fight off the bad guys.

There's just one problem with all this "reality," however: As with most real-life things, the tone of this movie tends to get a little long-winded.

Perhaps the fast pace of most movies today has ingrained in us the need to see a change every five minutes. Or maybe the filmmakers were just trying too hard to get their point across.

But while it is important to know about LaMarca's life, the writers didn't need to show multiple days of his normal routines before he even got around to realizing that the murderer is his son.

On the other hand, because the characters seem real it is easier to care for them than the superhuman characters we're fed in most films.

Copyright 2002 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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