Review: City Island

Review: City Island

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 84%

Not too many people have seen this film, but it's a gem. It's the kind of film you'll come across on a cable station a few years from now. You'll watch it and wonder how you managed to miss hearing about it when it was in theaters.

It's about family. It's about a very dysfunctional family. They live on City Island, a part of the Bronx that floats in Long Island Sound. I've passed by it dozens of times traveling from La Guardia into Manhattan, but I've never noticed it. Vince Rizzo (the oh-so-competent Andy Garcia) is a guard in a correctional facility who yearns for a different life. His wife Joyce (the always appealing Julianna Margulies) is less than happy with the state of their marriage. Their children have issues. For a reason I will not divulge, Vince brings Tony Nardella (Steven Straight), a prisoner, home where he will remain in his custody. Hilarity, confusion, and near tragedy ensue. By the end of the film, all have learned, all have changed, all is well. The plot is reminiscent of Down and Out in Beverly Hills from 1986: a stranger enters a family and transforms their lives. That film is, of course, a remake of Renoir's movie, Boudu sauvé des eaux (Boudu Saved From Drowning). Moliere would have liked this film.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it