OxfordPress.com

Grade: C

Verdict: Drowns in its own flop sweat despite some strong acting.

Details: Starring Robert De Niro, Frances McDormand and James Franco. Directed by Michael Caton-Jones. Rated R for violence and language.

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for City by the Sea

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: Straight from the archives of the earnest '50s drama anthology "Playhouse 90" comes "City by the Sea," a movie that's not bad but should've been so much better. The moral quandaries and overt melodrama that fueled the socially conscious "message movies" of nearly half a century ago feel creaky and a little out of place in 2002.

The good news is that Robert De Niro has decided to return to acting. After a string of goofy-Bobby appearances ("Rocky and Bullwinkle," "Meet the Parents," "Showtime"), De Niro gives a committed, textured performance as Vincent LaMarca, a New York City homicide detective whose past literally washes up on the Jersey shore.

The corpse, discovered by LaMarca and his partner (George Dzundza, who's made a career out of playing big-bellied, good-natured partners as far back as "The Deer Hunter"), is that of a scummy drug dealer.

As we already know from the opening, the dealer was murdered by a junkie named Joey Novas (because he drives a beat-up Chevy Nova) during a drug-hazed fight in a dark, pouring rain. Joey's real name is Joey LaMarca (James Franco), and he's Vincent's long estranged son.

Frances McDormand plays Vincent's girlfriend, who lives in the same building. She's been seeing him for almost a year, but she's mostly in the movie to serve as Vincent's sounding board when he launches into a tortured monologue about his tainted family. His father, also a cop, became notorious as the first man from Long Beach, an oceanfront town on Long Island, to be given the electric chair, the result of a botched kidnapping that killed the infant. Vincent, a kid at the time, dealt with his shame by becoming a cop — a good cop — but at home, he beat up on his wife (Patti LuPone) and she left. Now Joey seems to be following in the bloodied family footsteps. (McDormand, in a mark of how good she really is, listens to all this piled-on exposition convincingly, giving it weight through her reactions.)

The picture is based on an acclaimed Esquire article about the real LaMarca, who firmly believed there was no such thing as a murderous gene. A lot, apparently, has been changed (as in, made more audience-friendly). Most importantly, for this film, the real Joey's act was premeditated and cruel, not instinctive and accidental.

Director Michael Caton-Jones, who's done movies like "Scandal," "Rob Roy" and "Doc Hollywood," also collaborated with De Niro on "This Boy's Life." He uses Long Beach (actually played by the Boss' Asbury Park) as a powerful metaphor for the family troubles. Once a sun-kissed city by the sea, it's become a city rotting by the sea. "It's like the Serbians went through," cracks Dzundza as they search for Joey.

Vincent can't stop wishing the city was the way he knew it growing up, but, like his private life, it's lapsed into a decay that can't be patched over. The only remotely shiny things around town are the drive-up window of the local fast food joint and the marquee of the local porn house. It's a place of ghosts — just like LaMarca's memories.

The rest of the film isn't handled as well, mostly because of Ken Hixon's disappointing and simplistic script. The father/son theme is summed up in a clunky line like, "What are you, a cop or my father?" And when Joey flees to his mom's after the killing, he could be James Dean moaning at her kitchen table — not because he played Dean in the TNT movie, but because the scene is right out of a movie Dean could've made decades ago.

The scenes between De Niro and McDormand have such spark that you wish their relationship was the movie's center. Seeing them together so briefly makes you hunger for a rematch. But probably not in "City by the Sea 2."

Well-acted, intelligent and honest, the film works too hard to be meaningful — and it's never good to see a movie sweat.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, (none)