Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

City of Hope Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 31, 2024

Corruption. Power. Community. Connection. Despair. Brutality. Hopelessness. These are the true denizens of the New Jersey inner-city streets as depicted in City of Hope, an ironic title that skewers its own stomping grounds. The film may not rise to the top of its kind, but with an impressive cast, strong script, palpably angry direction and excellent performances, it certainly leaves a heavy mark, offering social commentary of the highest order; occasionally to an on-the-nose fault, yes, but poignant and sadly timeless nonetheless. City of Hope is less concerned with power in the early '90s and more focused on just how far people will go to survive and come out on top... and the answer is less than optimistic. Even the most untouchable and pure are sullied by the time Sayles is finished with them, and the sadness that permeates in its wake is something that will leave audiences of any decade thinking and asking hard questions long after the credits roll.

City of Hope gritty urban film from John Sayles that follows various people living in a troubled New Jersey inner-city, most notably Nick (Vincent Spano), a disillusioned contractor who's received assistance throughout his entire life from his wealthy but corrupt father, property developer Joe Rinaldi (Tony Lo Bianco). Other characters in the ensemble drama (a veritable who's who of stars and familiar faces of the era) include unstable homeless man Asteroid (David Strathairn), idealistic young politician Wynn (Terminator 2's Joe Morton), Nick's friends Bobby (Jace Alexander) and Zip (Todd Graff), smalltime criminal Carl (John Sayles), waitress and soon-to-be love interest to Nick, Angela (Barbara Williams), her baby's father, a hot-tempered police officer named Rizzo (Tony Denison), two young boys harassed by the cops, and black activist Malik (Tom Wright). Other low-lifes and passersby in Nick's life include Yoyo (Stephen Mendillo), Riggs (Chris Cooper), Levonne (Frankie Faison), Jeanette (Gloria Foster), Reesha (Angela Bassett), Laurie Rinaldi (Gina Gershon), Connie (Maggie Renzi) and Franklin (Daryl Edwards).

The fact that Spano didn't became one of the preeminent stars of the 1990s is a shame. His performance delivers on all fronts. Not because he taps into some sort of Scorsesian machismo but because he does precisely the opposite, allowing Nick to emotionally exude the same elements that will eventually seal his fate. His castmates are just as talented, barring a few briefly present then thankfully gone bit actors, and City of Hope occasionally plays like a feature film take on The Wire or, a touch more contemporaneously, Homicide: Life on the Street. Sayles strikes a good balance with his ensemble, even with Spano taking something of a clear lead in the mix. (Though he's perhaps more of a point around which everything else orbits.) He allows his own rage to enter the scene but cautiously so, never flinching away from the harder stuff of his New Jersey locales but preserving just enough humanity and possibility to prevent the film from careening off the rails into outright despair. Hope is still in short supply, even for idealists like Morton's Wynn (another terrific performance, another actor whose star should have rocketed far higher than it has). Everyone seems destined for downward movement; the good slip, the weary fall, the bad grow worse by the day, and the city, tied to its entire populace, descends further and further into darkness.

But Sayles has more than power and corruption on his mind. Militant activist groups, the police, civil servants of all stripes, business owners, developers, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers... all come beneath Sayles' microscope, each one dissected, examined and analyzed, then put under extreme pressure to test their mettle. A scant few hold onto their better angels. Most institutions, organizations, community leaders and households falter, with women bearing the brunt of the weight of what remains upright and intact. Even children are victims at an early age, which Sayles deals with carefully and believably, maintaining a hold on realism that benefits his youngest protagonists turned criminals. It doesn't all quite come together by film's end -- Nick's story takes precedence -- and a few too many loose threads are left untied, but there's a sense of perpetuality to the narrative that suggests Sayles' city of hope and hopelessness is never finished with someone until they draw their last breath. And maybe that's the point. Maybe death is the only respite from the perils of living in City of Hope, or calling out its evils, by way of film, art, family or whatever righteous mode of entry and exit one is afforded.

City of Hope Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The word "remastered" is no where to be found on the Blu-ray release of City of Hope, which is a surprise considering just how exacting and striking its 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer turns out to be. Refined and filmic from the jump, the film quite simply couldn't conceivably look much better than it does here. Detail is crisp and free of filtering or sharpening. Edges are clean and naturally defined. Textures are consistently revealing and grain reproduction is excellent. Colors are gorgeous too. While several scenes are subdued, almost to the point of being monochromatic, others revel in color. Bold streaks of searing red, vibrant town hall meetings and large gatherings, the hues of a cloud-cast city street lying in the shadows of looming buildings, perfectly saturated skin tones, deep and satisfying blacks (that never hinder delineation), and masterfully struck contrast leveling. Moreover, blocking, banding and compression anomalies are nowhere to be found. (Even when I encountered what I thought was brief, nearly imperceptible artifacting, it was merely a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot in which grain was uncharacteristically chunky.) All told, there's virtually nothing to complain about with City of Hope's top-notch transfer.

City of Hope Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Blu-ray release of City of Hope features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo track, which comes as a slight disappointment as the busy, bustling cityscapes would be ideal for LFE and surround support. Ah well. The two-channel mix we get is faithful to the film's original sound design, with intelligible and naturally grounded dialogue, solid prioritization, some nice weight, and strongly represented music. Sound effects tend to be a bit on the canned, tinny side, but it's in keeping with the era's audio limitations.

City of Hope Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only extra is worth a listen: director John Sayles' audio commentary, in which the filmmaker takes the time to unpack everything from casting to performances, cinematography, his fictionalized accounts of too many true stories, his composite characters, real life on the city streets and more.

City of Hope Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

City of Hope is a sizzling, unsettling inner-city drama that holds up, even some twenty years after its release. Crime and corruption have always been and will always be the currency of large, impoverished city communities, and only connection and righteousness has a hope of lighting the darkness, though light is often a dwindling luxury. I wasn't able to get to Sony's Blu-ray release earlier this year, which is a shame considering how excellent a release it is. I would have loved to see some more extras, perhaps a full retrospective with the cast, but the BD's superb video presentation and strong audio offering more than make up for it.