City Island Movie Review

One engaging comedy about a dysfunctional middle class family residing on an out-of-the-way New York fishing town just a few miles located in the Bronx is City Island.

The movie is good for laughs as Andy Garcia assumes on a Bronx accent and a typical bearing portraying Vince Rizzo, a corrections officer as well as the father of the family. Teaming up with him is the stunningly pleasant Julianna Margulies who plays his often neglected but toughie wife Joyce.

City Island is one enjoyable movie that veers away from the clichés of old, told in the setting of midlife crisis occurring in males. Raymond De Felitta, the writer and director of City Island knows his craft, creating a pleasurable family backdrop as his story. In watching the movie, one would come to love the zany but endearing Rizzo family, no matter how dysfunctional they may appear. The teens Vinnie and Vivian have their own secrets to keep which will make movie watchers be on their toes.

Other starrers that are on board for the film with good, solid acting include Emily Mortimer, Alan Arkin, Steven Strait, Ezra Miller, and Dominik Garcia Lorido. There are also good twists seen in the film and in its impressive climax, all the secrets are disclosed to the audience.

The ending may be satisfying but it comes off as predictable. No matter how the conventional conclusion seems to end, people will just love the characters and its plot as a whole.

A film that captures reality, humor, sadness, and movement, City Island fills that gap between banality and crude hilarity. Besides, the City Island in the Bronx makes for a lovely and unique location.