Possible Spoiler ahead: I had never heard of this film, but I was attracted by the ensemble cast of well known actors and was surprised to find it was a quite funny satire. It was also good to see the character actor James Gammon in a longer than usual part as the pragmatic Sheriff, in fact his talk with Danny at the end wrapped up all the loose ends, but not in the usual whodunit fashion - the Sheriff countered every solution with an alternative ending.I like films which do not have the traditional happy ending where the plot is solved and everyone lives happily ever after. Life is not like that. Life is ambiguous. Sometimes the wrong side wins, the bad guys don't get what is coming to them and the good guys lose out. It all depends on how you view it. One of Britain's morning newspapers had a headline the morning after the 2004 election "How could 34 million voters be so dumb?" Yes, that is all it took to re-elect G. W. Bush!

There was some great work by minor characters in the film. The actors playing Mexicans were very convincing and real. One had sympathy for the right-wing radio show host (Miguel Ferrer) being bullied by the bigwigs in the party for being a bit of an outcast. Kris Kristopherson gave a great performance of a cowboy-millionaire, who fancied himself as a man who made things happen (and could convince almost anyone that he was really justified in being the amoral individual he was). There was also a sincere performance by a miner, who became a manager and ended up paying bitterly for being the "yes man" to the mine owner - a large, amoral corporation with a powerful lock on the life of the entire state of Colorado. The problem was that, of the major characters, only Chris Cooper shines. He is obviously portraying Bush, and does an excellent job of portraying a naive man, struggling to express basic thoughts, and being adored and utilized by everyone who holds onto his cape in expectation of great fortunes out of his becoming governor. The main character, the private investigator, I never bonded with. He never really engaged me. I didn't really understand his appeal or where he was coming from. Darryl Hannah's role was incredulous. Is a beautiful woman like here in the 2000's just sitting around hoping for the next man in town to arrive? I don't think so. Tim Roth's performance was very blasé. The biggest disappointment was Richard Dreyfus' performance. His characterization was so one-dimensional and stereotypical that you couldn't really feel convinced by it. There were great moments of beauty in the film. I particularly liked when the town developer said in glee that he 'is going to build a city'. It shows exactly how and why people become so greedy and zealous about development and progress. They see themselves in the history books. The ending was sad. The fish floating in the water showed the fragility of life amidst the beauty of Colorado. However, even that message was severally weakened by the whole rest of the movie that led up to this scene. The movie disappointed me, because I was only moved at moments. The rest of the movie seemed rather pointless and wandering. This is a flaw that John Sayles is usually not guilty of. As bizarre and unique as the stories that Sayles comes up with, his plots are always cohesive and logical. Silver City is an exception to this.

I believe Mr. Koch misses the point. I just saw this movie, though I had heard about it previously and wanted to see it. I had to check the date: 2004. This movie has the "truth of fiction," which means it has fictional characters and story to portray the absolutely scary political phenomena that we are living in. This is no exaggeration of what the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration are unfortunately, successfully bringing about in this country, under the guise of the same family, religion, market fundamentalism hype that is destroying our country, allowing the infrastructure to deteriorate, while rewarding their greedy corporate donors to benefit.

From the so elegant titles of the beginning to the very end with that song of Steve Earle, everything it's been well cared in this story about political intrigues, corruption, mistreatment of the immigrants, and critic of the system. The cast is just superb (in fact it is the strong point of "S. City"), and Chris Cooper looks great playing that drip Governor that's just a puppet in the hands of his father's rich friends (does it sound familiar to any of you, guys??). John Sayles had all the necessary ingredients to create a superb movie, but there's something wrong: maybe that there's not a specific target, maybe the so linear narration, maybe the excessive length... There's a very thin line that separates great movies from ordinary movies, and "Silver city" does not trespass it in any moment. Anyway, it is a good try, and it's good to have some quality stuff from Hollywood.*My rate: 6.5/10