City Island

Release Date: April 26th, 2009

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Stars: Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Steven Strait, Ezra Miller, Alan Arkin

Synopsis: Corrections officer Vince Rizzo's pursuit of his secret dream of becoming an actor causes his wife to believe he is having an affair.  While this is the driving storyline in City Island, everybody in the Rizzo family has a secret of their own.

AltAss Ratings (On a scale of 1 to 5 asses)

Plot & Writing:                   

Very well crafted story and dialogue.  Nothing major to point out here that severely detracted from the quality of this film.

Acting:                            

Andy Garcia plays a character that is completely different from anything else he has ever done before in his career and knocks it out of the park.  Ezra Miller and Alan Arkin are hillarious in their supporting roles and everyone else keeps up which makes this film very fun to watch.

Originality:                   

There are some good twists on some of the staples of classic comedy and drama elements but nothing that will knock your socks off.

Overall:                        

City Island is well worth a look and provides some good laughs and teaches a valuable lesson about the value of the truth.  I passed this by several times at the video store before finally picking it up and ended up watching a lot of films not nearly as fine as this.

The Laugh Factor:

Belly Laughs: 2

Chuckles: 3-5