In this movie, ambition overreaches result, and the usually clear-sighted John Sayles flounders. There are moments of brilliance, as when the camera turns sharply to pick up new threads in the sprawling interweave of city intrigue that composes the central theme. But the sprawl ultimately proves too unwieldy for even Sayles' considerable talent. I only wish he had succeeded. The backdoor machinery of city politics needs sensitive treatment of the kind Sayles can deliver. But the script falters and the characters seldom rise above uninteresting stereotype. If its true that too many cooks spoil the soup, it's also true that too many soups spoil the cook, no matter how versatile the latter. Here, director-producer-writer-actor Sayles simply raises more urban issues than he deals with effectively: police corruption, brutality, racism, homophobia, kick-backs, drugs, influence peddling, organized crime, with a symbolic love story thrown in - in short, the whole 9 yards that keeps cities operating. Unfortunately, the end result is a force field that pulls apart rather than brings together, making the whole effort appear pointless.Too bad, because such unconventional scope requires unconventional methods of the type Sayles attempts. But I'm not sure it's possible to force such a life-sized tapestry into an ordinary two-hour time frame. Perhaps something on the order of a Godfather trilogy with a central focus on the Nicky character would accommodate the filmmaker's expansive vision. Trouble is, political mavericks and independents like Sayles seldom get the financing necessary for following through. Looks like he may be consigned to work the fringes in the brilliant and committed fashion of Matewan and Eight Men Out, for which there is nevertheless always an audience.

This is supposed to be a story about - well, it's not really aboutanything - but it does have a whole mess of standard New Jerseystereotypes so I assume it is supposed to be about the grittyunderside of city corruption and the Political Machine.I think.Anyway, save your money, buy the Springsteen box set - or at leastthe greatest hit CD - because in 3 minutes of Springsteen you'llget a better understanding of blue collar northeastness than in all100 or whatever minutes of this film.Yo Nicky!

In "City of Hope," John Sayles appears on screen as one of his urban cliche characters, but off screen he's Jerry Lewis, wheeling out his crippled city and his crippled movie and trying to manipulate the viewer into phoning in a pledge or something.Unfortunately for him and his poster-child city, the kid is thoroughly unlovable. Sayles' fictitious Hudson City tries to be a composite of real-life New Jersey industrial towns, but it ends up being just a laundry list of big-city problems--poverty, racism, bad government-- slapped up on the big screen with Sayles saying nothing more than Isn't This Awful? and Don't You Want to Do Something About It? This might work if we were given more reason to care, but the characters never get a chance to become more than cartoon characters in a one dimensional place.I live in a big city, but if someone tried to get me to see "City of Hope" again, I'd split for the suburbs.

first, can someone tell me what genre this movie was? was sayles joking? or were we supposed to care about these heavy-handed caricatures? yes, there are moments of good and intentional black comedy, and that ending shot was classic. but the core drama and pathos driving this movie are more worthy of undergrad filmmakers and daytime soaps. weak and puerile.how did such a cool filmmaker waste his time on this?