City by the Sea

2002 "When you're searching for a killer... the last suspect you want to see is your son."
6.1| 1h48m| R| en| More Info
Released: 06 September 2002 Released
Producted By: Warner Bros. Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Vincent LaMarca is a dedicated and well-respected New York City police detective who has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his past, but then makes the terrible discovery that his own son has fallen into a life of crime.

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Reviews

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
juneebuggy This ended up being just an okay crime drama despite the more than decent cast, an intriguing plot and a pretty brilliant performance from James Franco. It's based on a true story about a well respected and dedicated New York City police detective (Robert DeNiro) who has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his past, as his father was executed for the 1950s kidnapping of a child.With a tentative relationship just beginning with his downstairs neighbor (Frances McDormand) Vincent's latest investigation threatens to topple everything as his own (estranged and drug addicted) son has just become the lead suspect in the murder investigation. This is a gritty character drama that I'd expected to be better. 11/6
HanPolo This film is just awful. The only redeeming quality this film possesses is that they cast Eliza Dushku.That's it, folks. The people saying that it was good have an optimism complex larger than John Goodman. From Frances McDormand's awkward body language (and face touching) to Bob DeNiro's stilted play-up of father/son tensions to John Forsythe's contrived bad guy persona, this movie is downright terrible. I was surprised to learn it was made in 2002, since the score made it sound like it was from the mid-90s.And the fact that Eliza Dushku is hot doesn't really matter since she disappears 3/4 of the way through the movie after telling Bobby DeNiro that she is going back to using again. This is after the audience got no indication that she was having any trouble, and even witnessed her tell James Franco's character to stay clean earlier on.The film just tries way too hard to be dark. The drug use is visually brief, but referenced throughout. The setting is good (Long Beach, NY), but there's very little past-to-present context besides a few comments by the cast. The father/son element is meant to be two-fold, with DeNiro playing a guy battling his own father and his own son's fates, but by the end of the movie you can tell the writers did not have fun playing with that material.If I could give it negative stars, I would.
petit76 I was a bit tentative to stream this movie on netflix till I worked up some nerves to give it a shot and spared my two hours of my life to enjoy this slow-paced movie. It was drawn out of a very sluggish story development displaying commotion on a cop's life which turns topsy -turvy after his son inadvertently gets involved in two homicides. The beginning of this movie is quite boring but then it speeds up to a great climax of events engrossing the viewer till the credits end. I liked the music and all the cinematography used in this frugally budgeted movie. I did not see it when it came to the theaters but did not pass up the chance to stream it online. If you are out there bored of your mind stream or rent this movie. It is a great movie. Evren Buyruk
zofos In the mid-1990s, Quentin Tarantino argued that his idol Robert De Niro had let quality control in his career slip. "The care in the work isn't there anymore", he noted. Well, if you wanted proof of that argument, this movie is it.Reuniting with his "This Boy's Life" director Michael Caton-Jones (this is easily the worst movie he's ever directed), Robert De Niro sleepwalks his way through this movie for the money. He's overweight and looks utterly bored throughout. Only at the end does De Niro wake up and start trying to come up with something, but by then it's too late to care.Allegedly based on a true story (you could have fooled me, the script is an awful collection of cop clichés and junkie stereotypes), the film concerns the drug-addicted son of a cop who accidentally gets caught up in murders and goes on the run. De Niro plays the father cop who must choose between family loyalty and his job (have a guess which one he chooses. It's obvious from the start).With De Niro on autopilot, it falls to the rest of the cast to try and cover up for him. William Forsythe, De Niro's co-star from "Once Upon A Time In America", is in this as a drug dealer called Spyder (original name, huh? He has a conversation with a junkie that goes "Hey, Snake." "Hey, Spyder." Yup, it's that bad.) George Dzundza crops up as the hero's obese cop partner who gets bloodily murdered (the exact same role he played in "Basic Instinct.") The younger actors playing the junkies do everything obvious and overdo it at that. The only person who comes out of this with any credibility is Frances McDormand who manages to work up something realistic in her scenes with De Niro, but you can't polish a turd and this script is just that.The explanation for De Niro's son turning to drugs is an unbelievable "you-weren't-there-for-me-dad" self-pitying rant at the end. Yes, folks, drug addiction really is that simple. How this script got through to production is a mystery. It's amateur hour nonsense.This movie is so unambitious and uninspired; you have to wonder why they bothered making it at all. Avoid.