22 August, 2000

  City by the Sea

Robert De Niro has signed on to star in this crime drama for Warner Bros. It is based on a factual article in Esquire about a cop in New York whose father was executed for murder when he was a boy. Michael Caton-Jones will direct from a script by Ken Hixon. Stax got a hold of that script and shared his thoughts on it.

While I enjoyed this draft of City By The Sea, it nevertheless suffered from an overly conventional narrative. There's a gunfight finale/Cagney-esque last stand in an industrial setting, which is an unfortunate cliché that only reminded me this was a "cop movie." There are also a few light-hearted moments ("Aw, Vince can't change a diaper!") that fell flat. It's not as harrowing a tale as it should have been given its unsettling premise, and there were not enough surprises or curves thrown to keep me from knowing exactly where the story was headed. It didn't help that the industry trades compromised the identity of Joey Nova when they gave their plot synopses, ensuring that the story's biggest and most devastating surprise will hold little impact. At least, the story remained thematically rich material.

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