Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Prismark10 This is one of the best acted political films you will see. At the beginning you get a good idea of some of the wheeling and dealing the local politicians do just to get votes and keep various factions satisfied.There are four writers credited with the screenplay and three of those are recognised top drawer writers. It is obvious that the film has gone through various manifestations, gestations, rewrites and conceptual readjustments before a final, locked script emerged.The film dealing with a shooting that leaves a cop dead as well as an innocent child sets off a chain of events that leads to political skulduggery.While others might find the film hard going, even dense, there is no denying the quality of the acting.

kai ringler living in jersey for over 10 years and visiting n y c , i am very fond of this film,, John Cusack knocks the ball out of the park with this one, possibly his greatest work,, save for the Jack Bull. a little boy get's killed by in a shootout between a dirty cop and a gangster, john plays the deputy mayor,, brigette fonda is excellent in this film as well playing opposite john,, Al Pacino plays the Mayor of the great city of New York City who buy the way is also trying to get the Democratic National Convention to come there instead of Miami, so there is a lot of political wheeling and dealing there,, this film is a fascinating look at political life in the big city, and what happens between gangsters and politicians..

wes-connors Idealistic Louisiana-born John Cusack (as Kevin Calhoun) moves to New York City, where he impresses up-and-coming politician Al Pacino (as John Pappas) enough to become the Mayor's right hand man. The story begins with a shoot-out in Brooklyn, involving a gangster drug dealer and "off-duty" policeman. Unfortunately, an innocent six-year-old boy is shot dead in their crossfire. Naturally, this arouses a heightened interest in justice from the press, police, and public. Mayor Pacino tries to manage the unfolding drama with an eye on keeping his and Gotham City's reputation intact; he is considering a run for the White House, and is bidding on the upcoming Democratic Convention.Deputy Mayor Cusack joins the investigation, on his mentor's behalf. Pretty Bridget Fonda (as Marybeth Cogan) is added to up the feminine quotient, obviously; following one of the story's funerals, she and Cusack have a great car scene. Singing Rogers and Hammerstein songs, Danny Aiello (as Frank Anselmo) leads a terrific supporting cast. "City Hall" is so predictable, reviewers and studio publicity (like the DVD sleeve description) routinely hint at the film's big revelation; it was suppose to unravel slowly, but is painfully obvious too early on - in fact, the film's events, except for the opening boy's death, feel like a well-worn old pair of shoes. But, they are comfortable and fit nice.******* City Hall (2/16/96) Harold Becker ~ John Cusack, Al Pacino, Bridget Fonda, Danny Aiello

jzappa Working from a script written in part by Nicholas Pileggi, best known for writing the book Wiseguy, which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas, and for writing the book and screenplay Casino, director Harold Becker shows how connected circles scratch each other's backs, even in the command of a comparatively honorable mayor like Pappas, who is regarded as a presidential prospect. As Cusack follows the paper trail of the dead mobster's probation report, his skepticism is agitated. How did this violent young man get probation rather than a jail sentence? We meet the other players in the plot, not the least of which is Danny Aiello, the political boss of Brooklyn, and Tony Franciosa, the Mafia boss whose nephew was shot dead. How and why these people are affiliated I leave to the movie to divulge, though there are never any misgivings that they are.The narrative is told generally through the eyes of the Cusack character, a visionary from Louisiana who admires his boss and hopes to learn from him. Much is made by everyone of bureaucratic knowledge passed down through the generations. Some of the dialogue is ungracefully erudite, but considering I just described the building blocks of the story as bureaucratic knowledge, one can't say it doesn't work. The shooting case builds against the seasoning of two other issues on the mayor's desk: a charge by Aiello for a subway stop and an off-ramp in Brooklyn to aid a new banking center, and the city's bid for the next Democratic convention. Individual idiosyncrasies are also explored, including Aiello's emotional bond with the music of Rogers and Hammerstein.Much also is made of menschkeit, a Yiddish expression, which, Pappas explains to his deputy, is about the bond of honor between two men, about what happens between the two hands in a handshake. This connection doesn't mean much to Bridget Fonda, the lawyer for the policeman's association who defends the dead cop's honor and fights for his widow's pension even as incriminating evidence appears. Little by little, the deputy mayor comes to grasp that menschkeit is such an influential notion that it outclasses he law.There are various scenes of hard impact, including one where the Brooklyn boss comes home for lunch in the middle of the day, his wife asserts her interest through the medium of the dish she has cooked, and then the Mafia boss drops in by surprise. There is also a compelling, and markedly conjectural, late scene between the mayor and his deputy.One scene handled with delicacy is comprised of the mayor's decision to speak at the funeral of the slain child, in a Harlem church. His advisers tell him he won't be wanted there. But he goes anyway, and cranks himself up for a spiel of unabashed hyperbole, Pacino and his character both.It gets an impressive reaction from the congregation, but the mayor knows, and his deputy knows, that it was artificial, and the way they scrupulously evade discussing it, in the limousine taking them away, is a subtle employment of composure and innuendo. This is a script that knows it has to supply Pacino with the reason why most of his fans go to see him, and immediately follows its quota with the reality that silence has much more inherent meaning than speech.Pacino and Cusack are convincing together throughout the movie, the older man unbreakable and aware, the younger one anxious to learn, but with ideals that don't sway. Pacino is innate with his down-to-earth capacity to marry common sense and inventive imagination, inspired flair and matter-of-fact realism. Cusack moves very freely in spite of his dark defensiveness.The Bridget Fonda subplot development is unnecessary, but it is a result of veteran screenwriter Paul Schrader's otherwise shrewdly perceptive belief in the worth of every character, and each is fleshed into earnest embodiments. Aiello, for instance, is a highlight because he evokes his character's joie de vivre and sensitivity to his environment.