City by the Sea

One of the saddest things about Hollywood in the last twenty years is the de-evolution of Robert De Niro's career. Aside from the three films he's made with David O. Russell, he's made mostly crap. Perhaps the blame can be put on his insistence that he's better at comedy (he certainly was great in Silver Lining's Playbook). Or perhaps he just wants to work (or make money).

He has a large body of work this century that is highly forgettable. One of them is City by the Sea, from 2002, which for some reason was in my Netflix queue. It's got a good cast--he co-stars with Frances McDormand and a young James Franco, but it's a fairly routine cop film. What stands about it is that De Niro did not just phone in his performance. He grabbed me instantly and took me into the film.

Roughly based on a true story, De Niro plays a cop whose father was executed for murder. He grew up in Long Beach, once a lovely community, the "City by the Sea," which is now run down. He walked out on his wife (Patti Lupone) and son (Franco) some years earlier, and now Franco is a junkie. After an altercation with a drug dealer, Franco is now wanted for murder.

The film shows the balance De Niro must show in performing his duty but watching out for his son. The film was directed with general competence by Michael Caton-Jones, who ably shows the decay of a neighborhood. One of the key sets is a former casino and amusement park now fallen into disrepair and used as a shooting gallery.

Also in the cast are Eliza Dushku as Franco's girlfriend, and William Forsythe, a reliable villain, as the chief drug dealer in the era. City by the Sea is an okay time-waster, but it shows that even in less sterling projects, De Niro can still bring it.