A New Jersey city in which all loyalties are mixed up -- ethnic, racial, personal, family. Some people turn one way or another reflexively. Others feel as if each limb has been tied to a different horse and their slowly being pulled apart. Vincent Spano gets the main credit here but it really belongs to John Sayles who wrote and directed this tale of a near hopeless urban condition. Some guys are obviously "bad" -- the phony Italian mayor. But most of the people we see are just trying to please the people they owe something to, while making a buck on the side if it's possible. Even the cops are given more than one dimension.I don't want to get snobbish but the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote a lot about moral acts. He divided them into two kinds. "Hypothetical imperatives" were acts that came from thinking, "What's in it for me?" And "categorical imperatives" led to different acts that came from thinking, "What if everybody did this?"Only one character is impelled by categorical imperatives -- Joe Morton as the Councilman representing the black and Hispanic district -- and in the end, it seems he may have been won over to the other side. It's hard to tell. The ending of the film is ambiguous. Periodically the viewer has seen David Strathairn as a raving lunatic who goes around shouting things like, "Help!" and "Prices have never been lower!" Everyone pays him civil inattention. He's seen in jail, on the streets, and in crowds. And here, at the end, Vincent Spano is hiding atop a building crane with a bullet in him. His father, Tony Lo Bianco, tries to comfort him and then cries out "Help -- somebody help!" The camera shows us the street far below, lighted with those garish yellow city lamps. It's entirely empty except for a lone figure. It's Strathairn, who waves his arms back at Lo Bianco, shakes a hurricane fence, and begins to shout, "Help!" The likelihood of an improved situation is small.You have to hand it to John Sayles. It took a lot of courage to make this movie, and some of his others. They're filled with corruption and sometimes murder but they're not simple minded. The figures at the top of the hierarchy are sometimes the main cause of urban rot -- as in this case -- but they're not exactly evil. Like everybody else, they're move in a direction towards reward and away from punishment -- only their rewards are greater and their punishments less. At least in this movie. Historically every man who served as mayor of Newark, New Jersey, between 1962 and 2006 was indicted for corruption.It's really an ensemble movie and there are multiple intertwined plots so it's hard to outline them. Overall, it's a picture of life among the working class and the poor. The film doesn't leave anyone with an easy way out. As I say, a courageous movie.

In this movie, ambition overreaches result, and the usually clear-sighted John Sayles flounders. There are moments of brilliance, as when the camera turns sharply to pick up new threads in the sprawling interweave of city intrigue that composes the central theme. But the sprawl ultimately proves too unwieldy for even Sayles' considerable talent. I only wish he had succeeded. The backdoor machinery of city politics needs sensitive treatment of the kind Sayles can deliver. But the script falters and the characters seldom rise above uninteresting stereotype. If its true that too many cooks spoil the soup, it's also true that too many soups spoil the cook, no matter how versatile the latter. Here, director-producer-writer-actor Sayles simply raises more urban issues than he deals with effectively: police corruption, brutality, racism, homophobia, kick-backs, drugs, influence peddling, organized crime, with a symbolic love story thrown in - in short, the whole 9 yards that keeps cities operating. Unfortunately, the end result is a force field that pulls apart rather than brings together, making the whole effort appear pointless.Too bad, because such unconventional scope requires unconventional methods of the type Sayles attempts. But I'm not sure it's possible to force such a life-sized tapestry into an ordinary two-hour time frame. Perhaps something on the order of a Godfather trilogy with a central focus on the Nicky character would accommodate the filmmaker's expansive vision. Trouble is, political mavericks and independents like Sayles seldom get the financing necessary for following through. Looks like he may be consigned to work the fringes in the brilliant and committed fashion of Matewan and Eight Men Out, for which there is nevertheless always an audience.

"City of Hope": Let writer/director John Sayles pull you into one huge, HUGE, swirling Swirling SWIRLING mmmMMesSsmEEEesSSSMsmeSss of corruption. A big city has all the typical problems. Everyone operates realistically – i.e., you scratch my back, maybe I'll scratch yours. Right and wrong are lost concepts. Social and political survival tactics are practiced by the hunters and the hunted. No one is clean. Deals are made. Victims are collateral damage. It is a realistic story, with slightly enlarged dramatic characters. You won't laugh. (P.S. - See John Sayles film "The Secret of Roan Inish". It is nothing like "City of Hope" but it's amazing and wonderful.)

Some people complain about the number of subplots:That's precisely what makes this movie so original and so endearing.This is a small microcosm of characters we follow during two hours without getting bored.Sometimes the director leaves two people talking for two other ones in the same sequence:this technique is an update of what William Wyler used to do notably in "detective story" (1952) and even "best years of our lives"(1946).The sequences are very short and are intertwined with skill;the cast is uniformly good,with Tony LoBianco as the stand-out.This is a very interesting movie ,focusing on such important subjects as responsibility,honesty and dignity.Really worthwhile.