DVD Review: City island (12A) (From Your Local Guardian)

DVD Review: City island (12A)

4:29pm Thursday 24th March 2011

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Every once in a while a nice little Independent movie comes along from nowhere and leaves you with a big smile on your face, writes Mark Foker.

Middle aged New Yorker Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) and his dysfunctional family live in a quiet picturesque fishing community called City Island which is situated in the “nicer part of the Bronx” as Vince calls it. He has lived there all his life and works as a corrections office,(that’s prison guard to you and me). He believes in traditional values and wants what is best for his family but underneath this strong façade is an emotional man with a big dream.

Vince has a secret. He has a lifelong ambition to be an actor but he feels too embarrassed to admit this to his family. He concocts a cover story about going along to a weekly poker night with the boys when actually he is taking acting classes in Manhattan. His fiery wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies from ER and more recently The Good Wife) can see through the smokescreen but assumes Vince is covering up an extra marital affair.

It turns out that every member of his family has a secret of some kind. Joyce is suppose to have given up smoking but still has a puff when her husband is out. Their eldest daughter Vivian (played by Andy Garcia’s real daughter Dominik) has problems at college and their teenage son Vinnie has an unhealthy obsession about older women who are a bit on the large side. But it’s when Vince takes pity on a young offender Tony (Steven Strait) and brings him into his family home on parole that unsettles the status quo and there is a danger of everyone’s secret being exposed.

This is Andy Garcia’s film through and through and he was the producer as well as the star. He was also responsible for bringing the brilliant Alan Arkin on board as the acting instructor who pretty much steals every scene he appears in which is probably no more than five minutes of screen time.

Some of the most touching scenes are with Vince and his acting partner Molly (Brit actress Emily Mortimer) who helps Vince to discover his inner confidence. You really feel for him when he attends his first open audition with his naive approach to this strange new world and the embarrassment of bumping into his teacher going for the same part.

Personally I think this is one of Andy Garcia’s best roles and he seems to have matured into a great actor and is no longer the poor man’s Al Pacino. Mind you, I think if this film was made twenty years ago Al would have been the first choice.

A simple story with 100% feel good factor.

DVD extras: • Dinner with the Rizzos • Deleted scenes • Trailer City Island is released on DVD March 28th.

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