Review of City Island (2009) by Dean B — 11 May 2010

For those of you who've been waiting for Andy Garcia to fulfill the blazing, comet-like potential he first demonstrated 20 years ago in "Godfather III," you are so in luck. "City Island" is a trifling little comedy in the "Moonstruck" mode, but Garcia is the real deal in it, and he elevates and transforms the material.

Vince Rizzo (Garcia) lives on City Island, a little slice of working-class paradise off of Brooklyn. (I never even knew it existed, and now I want to visit it.) Vince works as a prison guard, but harbors a secret desire to act; his attending secret night classes has led his wife (Julianna Magulies, nicely partnering with Garcia) to think he's cheating on her. Their kids have their own secrets and dramas; the college-age daughter has left school and is working as a stripper, and their son has a fetish for large women. (This latter subplot seems more interesting than it plays; it doesn't really develop into anything.) Much more interesting is Vince's relationship with a prisoner named Tony (Steven Strait), whom Vince arranges to be paroled to his care, ostensibly to help Vince with some construction while Tony gets his life straightened out. Why would Vince do such a thing? Because though the younger man doesn't know it, Tony is Vince's son--and when Vince's wife and daughter start sniffing around Tony, potential hell threatens to break loose.

The ingredients are here for something bordering on tragedy (Vince's acting partner, played by Emily Mortimer, actually references the Greeks at a key point), but we know instinctively that the movie will skirt such pitfalls. Strait isn't a shaved-head thug, he's got a mop of pre-Raphaelite curls like a young Mandy Patinkin, and we know he'll eventually turn out OK. Similarly, the farcical misunderstandings between the various characters teeter on the edge of emotional violence, but are then neatly tied up. (A little too neatly, perhaps; Mortimer, a fine actress, is directed as though she were some sort of great lady-runaway-fairy godmother--it's as confusing as it sounds.) A couple references in the script indicate continuity issues, or some trimmed scenes. Vince Jr's issues with large women are mostly played for laughs, and resolved (?) too early on and too patly.

But still, there's Garcia. A little weathered but still handsome, he's using his voice to play every note on the keyboard, he's a comic force. A key scene involves Vince going to an audition for a film, and we feel his initial awkwardness and his out-of-element panic; then, as he starts to improvise an audition scene and morph into someone terrifying and completely different from himself, we are transfixed by his talent. And the end of the movie, where all secrets are revealed, lets Garcia shout at the heavens like King Lear for a little bit, before bringing him back down to his family's embrace and letting him tap into something deeply touching and loving. Vince isn't the brightest guy, but he's a good man with a big talent and an even huger heart; it's a pleasure to spend some time in his--and Garcia's--company.