Review of City Island (2009) by Manoj K — 18 Oct 2010

"Want me to feed you a donut?".

This movie has tons of potential, just lacks the last 2 tons to make it a full 5-star masterpiece. It starts off as a true realistic but hilarious comedy of a family that quickly shows itself not as the most common family on the block. Within the first 30-45 minutes though most of the secrets are unraveled which leaves only the expanding of the magnitude. This is when the game turns and what seemed to be a funny clever-witted comedy has turned itself into a dramatic comedy, which is actually turns out pretty nice.

There honestly isn't nothing bad to say about it and as stunning as it may seem it's actually quite plausible for this kind of story to unravel itself in a common household, which for a high-class comedy is pretty dazzling. Personally I think it was nice what the writers and the directors have achieved but still I must complain, that the second half of this - the dramatic part - wasn't quite up to the challenge, since it still tried to be funny but didn't quite reach it. Basically it kind of lost what it wanted to be - sort of identity crisis.

Now coming back from the overall experience to the actors and the plot. To start off I must say, that this is certainly the weirdest family I've ever encountered. We all have secrets and the secrets of the characters in this movie aren't so different... oh who am I kidding, they are pretty different for most part. I don't want to spoil it for you but having too many secrets in one household isn't always the greatest idea. I'll leave finding the secrets out for yourselves. For acting - it actually looks like a real married with children type of family, no complaints there, they've all done a great job.

To sum it up I would have to say, that if You've found this movie you should watch it, no matter what. Even if it's the last thing you do - you won't be disappointed (hopefully though this is not the case).