"City Island"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Everybody has secrets. Some are small secrets, such as when Carl covertly plans a trip to South America to surprise Ellie in “UP”, or when Ellie completes the photo album without Carl knowing about it. Then there are bigger secrets, like in “Avatar”, when Jake fails to tell Neytiri that he is actually aiding the U. S. government’s plot to destroy her home; or, in “An Education”, when David withholds the fact that he is married from Jenny.

Much like the characters in all of these recent movies, everybody in “City Island” has secrets, and some of them are bigger than others. However, unlike those films that have successfully captured the unintended and sometimes devastating effects of lies and deception, “City Island” has nothing new to offer. This movie is mostly unoriginal, often poorly acted and, most importantly, it just lacks that certain bounce—that verve—that is so often the saving grace of comedies that center on a dysfunctional family.

Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) is a simple, straightforward guy with a thick but down-to-earth New York accent. He was born and raised in City Island, which (believe it or not) is a quaint little fishing village in the Bronx. Vince is a college dropout that struck gold with a job as a prison guard and a vocation as the head of a beautiful family.

But despite his no-nonsense, “what you see is what you get” demeanor, Vince has a few secrets. For example, Vince smokes cigarettes (though, unbeknownst to him, everyone else in his family secretly smokes too). Also, Vince secretly dreams of one day becoming an actor. In fact, Vince takes acting classes at night, but he tells his family that he is just playing poker with the guys.

Vince also has some bigger secrets. For instance, long, long ago, he fathered a child out of wedlock and ran out on the mother. Thus, Vince is the father of an estranged son named Tony (Steven Strait)—a son who Vince finds out happens to be an inmate at his prison. For better or worse, Vince gets Tony released into his custody and brings him home to meet the family. Vince tells his family that Tony is a convict, but neglects to tell them that Tony is his convict, in the most literal sense of ‘his’.

Not surprisingly, Tony has some trust issues. But then again, so does every other member of Vince’s family. Vince’s daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) only pretends to be a college student. In reality, Vivian is a stripper. Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller), a skinny, sarcastic high schooler, is hiding a secret sexual fetish for feeding mountains of food to obese women. And Joyce (Julianna Margulies), Vince’s wife, is attempting to suppress (or maybe just mask) her unbearable romantic attraction to Tony, who is, of course, her husband’s son.

As all of the secrets eventually come out and the shouting reaches a fever pitch, Tony ends up looking like the most normal, most well adjusted, member of the Rizzo household. With a little prodding from convict, the family learns that it must fess up or break up, even when spilling the beans turns out to be more difficult than one might have imagined.

“City Island” is rigidly formulaic, and thus, just as day follows the night, this story follows many movies before it with the same tired and predictable plot. Andy Garcia does an adequate job playing a Joe Shmo New Yorker, but every other performance is spotty at best. The result is sometimes funny, but mostly awkward.

However, I should not pretend that this movie is never entertaining. After all, it is hard not to be entertained when the threads of countless webs of deceit all weave together. But, in all, this movie feels like a cheap thrill. It leaves you empty and a bit nauseous, like the slightly sick feeling one gets when riding a carnival ride that just spins you around and around and around.