If you don't know who James Franco is already, you will pretty soon. The 23-year-old actor has already won a Golden Globe for the titular role in TNT's James Dean biopic and costarred in the summer's biggest blockbuster, Spider-Man (as Green Goblin's son).
But Franco's best chance at breaking through has not come until now, with his star-making performance in City by the Sea, opposite no less than Robert De Niro. Not only does Franco manage to keep up with the multiple Oscar-winner, he actually sets the pace.
The prologue for the film features an idealized portrait of Long Beach, N.Y., in the 1950s. Thousands of beachgoers populate the booming vacation spot as the crystal-clear ocean reflects the radiant sun. Dissolve to 50 years later and the placid "city by the sea" has deteriorated into a cesspool of squalor and crime.
Panhandling for drug money through these desolate streets is Franco, the face of a troubled loner, as street thug Joey "Nova" LaMarca.
Meanwhile, on a stormy night across the river in Manhattan, we are introduced to Joey's estranged father, Det. Vincent LaMarca, played deftly by De Niro. Vincent, like Joey, is akin to routine. His daily ritual revolves mainly around spending time with his middle-aged girlfriend (Oscar-winner Frances McDormand), a fellow tenant in his apartment building.
He has not seen or heard from Joey in many years. When he finally does, Joey is the prime murder suspect in the investigation Vincent is leading. This isn't the first brush the LaMarcas have had with crime, either. Vincent's father was convicted of kidnapping and murder and executed when Vincent was only a boy.
This basic setup has all the makings of melodrama, but the script is actually based on the startling true story of the LaMarca family, as reported by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike McAlary in a September 1997 issue of Esquire magazine.
Though screenwriter Ken Hixon sugarcoats the characters considerably, as one could tell from reading the McAlary article after seeing the movie, he succeeds in adding another layer to the story, via the town of Long Beach.
Borrowing a page from the immortal film noir, Chinatown, Hixon uses the "city by the sea" to represent the checkered past that Vincent LaMarca has run from, but his son cannot escape. The investigation into the world of his son invariably dredges up memories of his father.
Joey, meanwhile, is perpetually brooding over the innocence he lost somewhere along the way -- an innocence he hopes to regain by clinging to a half-forgotten childhood memory, a trip to Key West that his family enjoyed when he was a toddler. To escape the looming imposition of both the police and the partner of the drug dealer who Joey is accused of killing, he plans vainly to pack up and leave for Key West with his girlfriend, Gina, and his own infant son.
Gina, played by a miscast Eliza Dushku, knows better and comes to Vincent for aid, bridging the gap, in a way, between father and son. This results in a moral dilemma for straight-arrow Vincent, who is forced to choose between due process and the love of his troubled son.
The biggest flaw of the film, actually, is its failure to emphasize this relationship fully. By keeping the two from appearing onscreen together for most of the film, director Michael Caton-Jones does a nice job of building up tension for an eventual confrontation between them. But this confrontation never really pays off, as it goes straight from rising action to resolution without the necessary turning point in their relationship.
Regardless, Franco shines as Joey. He is simultaneously pitiable and likeable, whilst simmering with angst. Pitting the budding actor with veteran De Niro, and watching him sprout, is reason enough to watch this movie.
