One of my most treasured films of all time, "City Hall" enters the hall as one of the most under-appreciated and overlooked films of all time yet it is one that deserves and needs a wider audience. Here's a film that balances with near perfection a combination between reality and fiction. The dark side of the story feels truly real while the most fictional and warm aspects felt like a reality to be achieved, things that simply don't happen in politics - at least, as long as I've known and seen. "City Hall" tells the story of a respected New York City mayor (Al Pacino) who along with his deputy mayor, a young idealist Southern man (John Cusack) try to discover the truth behind the shooting of a 6-year old kid accidentally hit during a crossfire between a detective and the nephew of a power mobster, the latter brilliantly played by Anthony Franciosa. In the scandal there's the involvement of public officials, probation officers, one powerful judge (Martin Landau), a high and mighty housing commissioner (Danny Aiello), the mob and even liaisons that trace back to the mayor. During the course of the investigation, more and more crimes will happen and things will unravel to a point of no return. What dazzles me about "City Hall" isn't much about how each character connection is constructed, with complexity and very well-tailored by the four writers (Bo Goldman, Ken Lipper, Nicholas Pileggi and Paul Schrader); but above all, I'm more excited in the ethics and moral arc of the characters specially the mayor Pappas and how he conducts his actions, becoming an ideal political figure that simply doesn't exist. He's highly dedicated to his city and its population to the point of appearing in events he wouldn't be welcome - like going to the boy's funeral or comforting the cop's wife right after his death in a hospital. "The city takes care of its own" he says at a given point. Sure, you can say it's all a photo-opportunity for everyone to see because there's elections coming and his name is a favorable for a party convention to the presidential election. But his speeches, power and energy rings true, there's an aura of authenticity inside and outside of him that for one moment you forget about the film's fiction and wonder how come leaders like him are a rarity these days when most of the time they avoid attending big events with fear of boos and crowd rejection on their faces. But the mayor is almost a supporting character; Cusack takes charge of everything while trying to solve the puzzle of what happened on that rainy day where three people were killed; who signed the probation papers for the release of a hard criminal; and he gets a slightly friendly support of a lawyer (Bridget Fonda) who works in the assistance of the cop widow's pension, in constant fight with authorities when the detective isn't no longer a victim but instead gets investigated by the internal affairs. The layers of this intriguing onion get more and more difficult to reach when Aiello characters enters the scene as someone who knows too much, someone who's in too deep in the mess becoming a contact between the city officials and the mafia while solving his own businesses. "City Hall" is an intelligent film that dares to ask questions even though it solves too much of its problems and doubts. When it comes to living in a big city, who's there for us to really represent us instead of just getting their pockets filled with money or serving the interest of the bigger fishes? Situations like the ones depicted in the picture can be avoided? No one is safe when it comes to the political economical system? And we as society members, tax-payers and all, to whom we do recur in desperate need when we see that our representants fail to attend us? A movie like this may not restart our faith and hopes for better days while being voting citizens but at least it can reassure us that we must be hard questioning beings who are aware that society and politics are forever intertwined because one move the other. Whether being the deputy mayor's idealism in believing a great speech or the mayor quoting Pericles of Athens or LaGuardia quotes or the meaning of "Menschkeit", it's all there...a view of the world, what it was, is and could be. And it's thankful to the great performances of gentlemen like Pacino, Cusack, Aiello and David Paymer that a film like this can transform, change the game or at least the perception that things can be done, mountains can be moved for good and our relations within the community can turn into something positive. Harold Becker makes one of his best films (in my view, his most memorable despite my love for "Sea of Love" and "The Onion Field"), a work that flows with an elegant view, nice rhythm despite the slowness and long dialogue sequences - the ones between Cusack and Pacino are masterful moments of acting, delivery and importance; and his use of music composed by the great Jerry Goldsmith, with some classy suspense and dramatic themes is sublime. I've seen this time and again over the years and there's always something new to be found there despite the appearance of being a somewhat simplistic work. It's not. Here's a film that flourishes with quality, and makes you experience something real unfolding before your eyes. It's cinema with an extra quality, one that mirrors life as it is and one that can also injects a possibility for a brighter and better one. 10/10

Being a huge fan of Al Pacino (from the likes of 'Heat', the 'Godfather' movies, and 'Dog Day Afternoon' especially) and having had a huge crush on Bridget Fonda ('Single White Female', anyone?) back in the day (Peter Fonda's famous daughter was named 85th sexiest star in film history, and Mrs. Danny Elfman hasn't been involved in film, unfortunately, since 2002), I was hugely disappointed in this film, especially since I had loved director Harold Becker's previous 'Sea of Love', which also starred Pacino. The first half was decent and involving, but it kind of slid off the rails, interest-wise for me, the rest of the way and got too talky and uninspired.I don't really know if the problem was with the script or its direction. I know I'm not the greatest John Cusack fan in the world (I find he's much better in comedy, like his sister Joan), but he had pretty good co-stars, whose talents were basically wasted, in Martin Landau, Anthony Franciosa and Danny Aiello (these guys were BORN for these roles and films, so on paper, this should have really worked out well). I had always wondered why this film had bombed so miserably, and now I know why. In cases like this, more should have been done to alter the story arc, just some basic tweaks, to make it more suspenseful and/or (though I usually balk at such 'Hollywood' tendencies) some romantic tension (a beauty such as Fonda's was misused--they may as well have hired someone else). All in all, a wasted opportunity that's worth a look if you like dramas about corruption--just don't go in with big expectations, and don't bother with a re-watch.

Well, I will say this is the worst movie of Al Pacino, and this is not his mistake. I don't really know what the director was thinking while making the movie. If you have to make it a political drama, make one. But if you have to make it a murder mystery, than have it like that. I don't really know why people liked this movie so much (giving it 6 and 7 Rating, as it does not deserve it). This is simply a waste of time. People who want to watch the Political Dramas, they are well aware of the fact that the Politicians are far more intelligent than the ones shown in the story. And if they do bad things, they don't simply give up so easily. Everyone seemed to know what was happening, and no one seemed to react it. How come some one be so neglecting to incoming danger? It is natural for people having power to find the negative ways, and solve the issues, especially when they have already done something negative. It looks like they were all waiting for the climax to just pop up, and then say... 'Ah! What the..." For some reasons, the climax seemed to be obvious since the middle of the movie.3/10 only for Al Pacino. I really liked the way he delivered his Passionate speeches. I won't say it was a completely boring movie, but many people won't enjoy it. I only did because of being Al-Pacino Frenzy.

Working from a script written in part by Nicholas Pileggi, best known for writing the book Wiseguy, which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas, and for writing the book and screenplay Casino, director Harold Becker shows how connected circles scratch each other's backs, even in the command of a comparatively honorable mayor like Pappas, who is regarded as a presidential prospect. As Cusack follows the paper trail of the dead mobster's probation report, his skepticism is agitated. How did this violent young man get probation rather than a jail sentence? We meet the other players in the plot, not the least of which is Danny Aiello, the political boss of Brooklyn, and Tony Franciosa, the Mafia boss whose nephew was shot dead. How and why these people are affiliated I leave to the movie to divulge, though there are never any misgivings that they are.The narrative is told generally through the eyes of the Cusack character, a visionary from Louisiana who admires his boss and hopes to learn from him. Much is made by everyone of bureaucratic knowledge passed down through the generations. Some of the dialogue is ungracefully erudite, but considering I just described the building blocks of the story as bureaucratic knowledge, one can't say it doesn't work. The shooting case builds against the seasoning of two other issues on the mayor's desk: a charge by Aiello for a subway stop and an off-ramp in Brooklyn to aid a new banking center, and the city's bid for the next Democratic convention. Individual idiosyncrasies are also explored, including Aiello's emotional bond with the music of Rogers and Hammerstein.Much also is made of menschkeit, a Yiddish expression, which, Pappas explains to his deputy, is about the bond of honor between two men, about what happens between the two hands in a handshake. This connection doesn't mean much to Bridget Fonda, the lawyer for the policeman's association who defends the dead cop's honor and fights for his widow's pension even as incriminating evidence appears. Little by little, the deputy mayor comes to grasp that menschkeit is such an influential notion that it outclasses he law.There are various scenes of hard impact, including one where the Brooklyn boss comes home for lunch in the middle of the day, his wife asserts her interest through the medium of the dish she has cooked, and then the Mafia boss drops in by surprise. There is also a compelling, and markedly conjectural, late scene between the mayor and his deputy.One scene handled with delicacy is comprised of the mayor's decision to speak at the funeral of the slain child, in a Harlem church. His advisers tell him he won't be wanted there. But he goes anyway, and cranks himself up for a spiel of unabashed hyperbole, Pacino and his character both.It gets an impressive reaction from the congregation, but the mayor knows, and his deputy knows, that it was artificial, and the way they scrupulously evade discussing it, in the limousine taking them away, is a subtle employment of composure and innuendo. This is a script that knows it has to supply Pacino with the reason why most of his fans go to see him, and immediately follows its quota with the reality that silence has much more inherent meaning than speech.Pacino and Cusack are convincing together throughout the movie, the older man unbreakable and aware, the younger one anxious to learn, but with ideals that don't sway. Pacino is innate with his down-to-earth capacity to marry common sense and inventive imagination, inspired flair and matter-of-fact realism. Cusack moves very freely in spite of his dark defensiveness.The Bridget Fonda subplot development is unnecessary, but it is a result of veteran screenwriter Paul Schrader's otherwise shrewdly perceptive belief in the worth of every character, and each is fleshed into earnest embodiments. Aiello, for instance, is a highlight because he evokes his character's joie de vivre and sensitivity to his environment.