City by the Sea (R) ★★½

Murder is all in the family for Robert De Niro in this true-crime drama about an NYPD detective whose father went to the electric chair and whose son seems doomed to follow in his footsteps.

Story

Based on the life of New York City police detective Vincent LaMarca, City by the Sea vacillates between a true-crime mystery and a family drama. As Vincent (De Niro) investigates the murder of a Long Beach, N.Y., drug dealer, it becomes painfully clear that his estranged son, junkie Joey (James Franco), known on the street as Joey Nova, is the prime suspect. Vincent is, of course, taken off the case, but when his partner is killed while pursuing Joey, the search becomes the Long Beach police department's top priority--and saving his son from a police department eager for cop-killer blood becomes Vincent's. The fact that Vincent discovers that he has a grandson, Angelo, doesn't help the situation, especially when Joey's supposedly clean ex-junkie girlfriend (Eliza Dushku) leaves the kid at Vincent's apartment when she goes to buy cigarettes and fails to return. Vincent, who's always defined himself against his criminal father, finds himself forced to decide whether he's a cop or a father and grandfather first, a quandary that naturally leads to some pretty compelling, if slightly melodramatic, scenes for De Niro. Interestingly, despite the somber subject matter and the dramatic tone, the film still manages a few lighthearted moments, which really save it from the pitfalls of its own seriousness.

Acting

Sometimes a great cast can make even a mediocre film good, and that's what happens in City by the Sea. Even though the dialogue they're given to work with isn't always completely natural--in fact, sometimes it's downright contrived--the cast still manages to create a compelling final product. You just can't go wrong with De Niro as a hardened, streetwise, emotionally distant cop, and he makes everyone opposite him look great, especially relative newcomer Franco (whose performance as a young James Dean in TNT's James Dean earned him some critical kudos of his own). The young actor swaggers onto the scene like a very young Bob Dylan, a hollow-body vintage guitar slung across his back. Of course, he's selling it for drugs, not heading for a gig. Patti LuPone really sinks her teeth--and catty claws--into her role as LaMarca's bitter ex-wife, creating some of the film's most dynamic scenes, while Frances McDormand lends her subtly expressive style to the most emotional moments as De Niro's sometime girlfriend Michelle.

Direction

Director Michael Caton-Jones delves into the dark side of his imagination with images of a desolate Long Beach: graffiti-covered walls, crumbling casinos and a rickety boardwalk--all the detritus of a once-thriving tourist destination. In this grim setting, Joey wanders virtually empty streets and beaches where as a child he played happily; meanwhile, in Manhattan, Vincent is wandering his streets in much the same way. It's an interesting device Caton-Jones uses to show the similarities between the two men, and it's as effective at establishing their relationship as the relatively few scenes they have together. At moments like this, when the film is making its emotional impact visually, it shines; unfortunately, City by the Sea relies a little too often on its average dialogue and does a little too much telling and not enough showing.

Bottom Line

City by the Sea is an uneven picture with peaks of greatness and valleys of melodrama that make the overall viewing experience more like a roller-coaster ride at Coney Island than an eye candy-filled walk down the Long Beach boardwalk in its heydey.