City of Hope (1991)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Excellent but underrated film

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

John Sayles knows how to write a movie. More than that, however, Sayles knows how to compose such a fantastic ending to a movie. He can weave concepts and ideas from scene to scene and from character to character showing us all the different shades of the spectrum while still maintaining a mostly unbiased view of politics and corruption. In Sayles' City of Hope, this is no different, and I am not surprised that as I peruse through it's film page that less then 2,000 people have viewed this cinematic genius at work. Throughout the film, we are introduced to an easy count of 30 characters, who we can understand and compare, whether they're on screen for one hour or one minute. Vincent Spano and Joe Morton hold the most ground and screen time while never letting the viewer down on their performance. While Tony Lo Bianco and John Sayles are nothing short of brilliant in their roles as well. But above them all, David Straithairn subtly steals the show with one helluva performance that we never take full notice of until the incredible ending.I love how Sayles gave himself and Kevin Tighe the ugliest characters in the film (after seeing him do so well in Sayles earlier masterpiece, Matewan). All I can say is that this film is absolutely worth watching. It reminds us (as it reminded me) how badly society needs help and how problems don't go away until it is finally realized that such problems exist. The separation between social classes is apparent and it is also the major issue that Sayles weaves in and out of most of his character motives. Racial slurs, bigotry, prejudice, and politics are all where Sayles points the blame in this film. And by the end, Sayles has us wanting more as we see the lowest and most unnoticed character in the entire film shout for help and is totally unheard. 10/10

Director John Sayles brings something rare to American films: a keen sense of purpose. The result is gutsy, knockdown entertainment. Building contractors, politicians, crime bosses and racist cops all contribute to this kaleidoscopic analysis of a New Jersey city riddled with corruption.City Of Hope is a masterly deconstruction of the power plays, vested interests and spheres of influence that run, and often ruin American cities. Unrivalled in its sheer scope and ambition until the TV series The Wire (2002), which it almost certainly influenced. This is Sayles' most satisfactory film.

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.

The 6 I gave "City of Hope" is the lowest rating I've given any Sayles film. I'm a bit loathe to give any of his films a poor rating because he makes such though-provoking films, but "City of Hope" never came together for me. Unlike the many different characters and situations he pulled together in his masterful "Lone Star," "City of Hope" felt disjointed, as if the stories where connected only superficially. I suspect it needs another fifteen minutes to pull everything together, but since Sayles has complete control over his films, the lack of end coherence must be blamed on him.There are some wonderful performances in this film, especially Vincent Spano, who seems to have disappeared from film.Well worth checking out, but I'd suggest watching "Lone Star," "Matewan," "Passion Fish," and "Men with Guns" first.