City by the Sea (2002)

Very well executed

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Drug addict Joey LaMarca (James Franco) defends himself and kills dealer Picasso. He is injured and goes home to his skeptical mother (Patti LuPone). His estranged father NYPD homicide detective Vincent LaMarca (Robert De Niro) and his partner Reg Duffy (George Dzundza) are given the case of the dead drug dealer. Spyder (William Forsythe) is also after his associate's killer. Michelle (Frances McDormand) is Vincent's girlfriend. Gina (Eliza Dushku) is Joey's girlfriend and baby mama. Fellow addict Snake rats out Joey.There are good actors doing solid work. This material could be given a more grim style. This represents a slow slide in the quality of director Michael Caton-Jones. This should be a more intense thriller and a more heart-breaking tragedy. I keep thinking that this movie should be better. The biographical nature does muddy the story. There is an overall lack of intensity.

"City by the Sea" is a drama starring Robert DeNiro, Frances McDorman, James Franco, and Eliza Dushku.Vincent Lamarca's father was executed for kidnapping a child in the 1950s, yet he became a police officer.Lamarca (DeNiro) has an excellent career, but now he's hit a major snag. On the case he's currently involved in, he has to investigate a suspect close to home - his own son, Joey (Franco). Lamarca is divorced from his wife and left what's known as the "city by the sea" of Long Beach on Long Island long ago, and isn't that close to Joey. Now he loves in Manhattan, where he lives a somewhat reclusive life. He has a girlfriend, Michelle (McDormand) but he hasn't made a commitment. He's close to his partner Reg (George Dzundza) but they don't have a friendship outside of the job.The murder brings him back to Long Beach, which is the past he can't confront, one where he is haunted by his father's execution as a convicted murderer when Vincent himself was just a child. Vincent learns, the hard way, that his separation from Joey has cost both of them, and now might cost his 18-month grandson, too, who may have to grow up without a father.This film is a real downer, driven by the heartfelt performance of DeNiro as a man in obvious pain beneath the surface, a pain he can't express. I guess some of the negative comments I read had to do with the fact that it's a realistic story of a devastated relationship and dysfunctionalism, which some people may not be used to seeing nowadays. I'm just guessing. As a woman, I feel for Michelle. I'm sure men understand that aspect of Vincent's personality.I thought this was a very good if depressing film, with a beautiful characterization by De Niro that has frankly stuck with me.

***SPOILERS*** Since he was eight years old NYPD homicide Detective Vincent LaMarco, Robert De Niro, had to live with the terrible memory that his father was a child murderer who was executed for his crime at Sing Sing prison. As a husband and father Vincent wasn't all that successful either having a broken marriage as well as his estranged son Joey, James Franco, ending up on the streets or boardwalk in Vincent's former home town of Long Beach as a junkie. It's when Joey got into an altercation with his drug supplier Pacassio, Jay Boryes, that lead to the dealer death, with Joey stabbing him in self defense, that finally got father and son together under the most trying and dangerous of circumstances.It's actor Robert DeNiro's incredible performance as heart broken and guilt ridden Vincent LaMarco that really stands out in the movie "City by the Sea". Trying to get his fugitive son to give himself up has Vincent's partner Detective Reg Duffy, George Dezundza, track down Joey in this abandoned warehouse in Long Beach where he's been hiding. It's there where Duffy is gunned down not by joey but drug supplier Spyder, William Forsythe. Spyder mistook Duffy for Joey whom he was out to get for killing one of his street pushers the late Paccisso. Now with the death of a policeman, as well as his father's partner Det. Reg Duffy, on his head Joey is a dead man walking unless his policeman dad Vincent DeMarco can bring him into custody before the local as well as NY police get to him first.***SPOILERS*** With Detective DeMarco putting both his job as well as life on the line he finally gets his son Joey to stop running and meet with him on the Long Beach boardwalk to arrange to give himself up. That after Vincent uncovered evidence that it was in fact Spyder, who was since shot to death by Joey in defending his father, not him who murdered his partner Detective Duffy. Still it took a lot of convincing on Vincent's part to get Joey to give himself up even with him taking a bullet, from a police sniper, for him. Vincent DeMarco was always living not only with the thought of his father being an executed child murderer but in him abandoning both his wife Maggie, Patti LuPone, and son Joey when they needed him most. It was this act of self sacrifice on Vincent's part that in the end more then made up for all that!

CITY BY THE SEA stars Robert DeNiro and was directed by Michael Caton Jones whose previous big films include MEMPHIS BELLE and THE JACKAL . Somewhat strangely it only received a very limited release in Britain as it sank without trace at the box office . In fact I'm not even sure it got a cinema distribution deal such was its obscurity . Bare in mind however that both DeNiro and Caton Jones best known work were way in the past with the actor now known as someone appearing in cameo roles in forgettable movies and the director being known as someone who came from a working class Scottish background who made good , even though very few Scots could name more than two films he's directed As you might expect CITY BY THE SEA is something you might pick up at the DVD store , watch it one evening then by the time you're having breakfast the next morning you'll have forgotten ever seeing it . . It's certainly not terrible but neither is it more passable than being mediocre , it's a routine thriller that's far too routine . DeNiro plays a cop called Vince LaMarca whose father was executed for murder and now his son is on the run after being accused of killing a cop . Much of the emotional baggage of LaMarca goes totally unexplored and you'd never know of this family history until one of the characters occasionally brings it up via dialogue . In fact if LaMarca was written as female then you'd honestly believe that this was yet another variation of a TVM made for women