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Reviews
City Hall (1996)
Quiet Noir
I liked the quiet noir of the first part, the acting of Pacino and Cusak, especially their scenes together. The moodiness of the setting and the juxtaposition of the old pol and the idealistic youth was effecting. I wish Bridget Fonda had more scenes in the movie; she was an earnest and appealing character. The film went off the rails for me when the assistant mayor starting snooping around the mafioso to get to the bottom of something his boss clearly didn't want him meddling in. Nobody in their right mind would meet a mafioso on an abandoned dock in a junkyard. Here the story became implausible. Something that I don't understand: why did the cop and Vito have a shootout if the latter was delivering info that could bring down the corrupt judge?
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Transcendent Elizabeth and Phlegmatic Darcy
The best Elizabeth I've seen in this role, but the actor playing Darcy was wretched. He substituted mere depression for what Austen depicted: social unease and selectivity. Likewise, Wickham wasn't portrayed as a bounder, rather as a handsome, pleasant fellow who perhaps stretched the truth a little. The costumes and sets were superb, as was the writing. Many of Austen's epigrams remain in the script, but some of the marvelous back stories like Charlotte Lucas's philosophy of marriage in contrast to Elizabeth's don't play out. Compared to Charlotte, Elizabeth seems a romantic in this film, hardly Austen's view.