Film / City Hall

Kevin Calhoun: It all began with a shooting.

City Hall is a political drama/thriller directed by Harold Becker and starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda, Danny Aiello, David Paymer, and Martin Landau.

One morning in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, there's a shootout between Tino Zapatti, a drug dealer and a Detective Eddie Santos, both of whom end up dead. Also dead is James Bone, a six-year-old African-American boy caught in the crossfire. As Kevin Calhoun, deputy to Mayor John Pappas, investigates, he finds the drug dealer, nephew of mob boss Paul Zapatti, was out on a probation sentence for a felony crime, and Judge Walter Stern, a respected judge and friend of the mayor's, gave him that sentence. While Marybeth Cogan, a lawyer representing the interests of Detective Santos' widow, tries to make sure Santos isn't thrown under a bus by the city, Calhoun tries to find out who may have ordered Stern to give the drug dealer probation, and why.

City Hall contains examples of:

• Actor Allusion: While at a performance of Carousel, Mayor Pappas asks Frank Anselmo (a big fan of the play - see The Movie Buff below) what he thinks of the woman playing the female lead, and Anselmo responds, "My Nettie (Anselmo's wife) could sing better." Roberta Peters, who plays Nettie, was an opera singer.
  • When telling Anselmo to commit suicide, Zapatti tells him to "do the right thing". Danny Aiello appeared in Do the Right Thing.
  • When telling a Democratic senator the party should have their convention in New York City, Calhoun dismisses Chicago as a "second city". John Cusack is a native of Chicago.
• Affably Evil: Paul Zapatti, a ruthless mob boss who nevertheless is always polite, whether asking his associate to get ahold of his nephew, or asking a business associate of Anselmo's to leave the room, or asking Anselmo to committ suicide.
• Boom, Headshot!: Lenny Schwartz gets killed like this while on the phone with Calhoun. Also, Anselmo kills himself this way.
• Brass Balls: When Cogan tells James Wakeley she'll subpoena him if he won't talk to her and Calhoun:
  Wakeley: You looking to grow a pair of brass balls, Ms. Cogan?
  Cogan: No, thank you, I'm doing fine without them.
• Brick Joke: When Calhoun calls himself a politician, Cogan tells him he's not a politician unless he's running for office. At the end of the movie, Calhoun is running for city council.
• Broken Pedestal: Calhoun went to work for the mayor because he believed in him, and what he stood for, so he's disheartened to find out it was the mayor, thanks to a call from Frank Anselmo, the Brooklyn district boss who was in league with Zapatti, who told Judge Stern to give Zapatti's nephew probation and allowed him back on the street.
• The Cameo: Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, plays a news anchor.
• Cigar Chomper: Mayor Pappas can often be seen holding a cigar in his hand or his mouth.
• Corrupt Cop: The media tries to pain Detective Santos as one, especially when $40,000 is found in his late father's house. In fact, Santos was innocent - it's the Internal Affairs cop who planted the money who's corrupt.
• Crusading Lawyer: Cogan will stop at nothing to get justice for Detective Santos' widow.
• Insult Backfire: When Calhoun refuses to help Cogan help the detective's widow until he gets a copy of the original probation report:
  Cogan: You're a mean prick, you know that?
  Calhoun: Where I come from, that's a compliment.
• Layman's Terms: When Abe talks about how the probation report is "too kosher", Calhoun asks him to put in terms that a lapsed Catholic like himself would understand, to which Abe responds, "The virgin is pregnant".
• The Mafia: Paul Zapatti is a mobster with ties to construction of an off-ramp, and property around it, that Anselmo is trying to get Mayor Pappas to approve. He's also the one who asked Mayor Pappas, through Anselmo, to make the call so his nephew would only get probation.
• The Man Behind the Man: Cogan derisively calls Calhoun "the man behind the throne" when he tells her he's proud to carry the mayor's bag.
• Manly Tears: After Calhoun tells Mayor Pappas he needs to resign because of what happened:
  Mayor Pappas: Listen at you. I thought I'd see a boy's tears.
  Calhoun: The tears are there. You just can't see them right now. (his eyes fill up)
• Married to the Job: Calhoun. When Mayor Pappas encourages him to get real furniture for his apartment, and tells him, "Get a life!", Calhoun responds, "I've got yours; it's quite enough."
• The Movie Buff: A variation - Anselmo is a huge fan of the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein, as we see him singing, "A Wonderful Guy" and "People Will Say We're in Love" with a waiter at his favorite restaurant, and later, when he and his wife attend a showing of Carousel. he lip-syncs to all of the words.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Chicago native John Cusack struggles throughout the movie with a New Orleans accent.
• Rousing Speech: Mayor Pappas delivers one at James Bone's funeral:
  Mayor John Pappas: I was warned not to come here. I was warned. They warned me, "Don't stand behind that coffin." But why should I heed such a warning, when a heartbeat is silent and a child lies dead? "Don't stand behind" this coffin. That boy was as pure and as innocent as the driven snow. But I must stand here, because I have not given you what you should have. Until we can walk abroad and recreate ourselves; until we can stroll along the streets like boulevards; congregate in parks free from fear, our families mingling, our children laughing, our hearts joined - until that day we have no city. You can label me a failure until that day. The first and perhaps only great mayor was Greek. He was Pericles of Athens, and he lived some 2500 years ago, and he said, "All things good on this Earth flow into the City, because of the City's greatness." Well, we were great once. Can we not be great again? Now, I put that question to James Bone, and there's only silence. Yet could not something pass from this sweet youth to me? Could he not empower me to find in myself the strength to have the knowledge to summon up the courage to accomplish this seemingly insurmountable task of making a city livable? Just livable.. There was a palace that was a city. It was a palace! It was a palace and it can be a palace again! A palace, in which there is no king or queen, or dukes or earls or princes, but subjects all: subjects beholden to each other, to make a better place to live. Is that too much to ask?
  Congregation: No!
  Mayor Pappas: Are we asking too much for this?
  Congregation: No!
  Mayor Pappas: Is it too much to ask?
  Congregation: No!
  Mayor Pappas: Because if it is, then we are sheep heading to the slaughterhouse! I will not go down, that way! (congregation cheers) I choose to fight back! I choose to rise, not fall! I choose to live, not die! And I know, I know that what's within me is within you.
  Congregation member': Amen!
  Mayor Pappas: That's why I ask you now to join me. Join me, rise up with me, rise up on the wings of this slain angel. (congregation yells out in approval) We'll rebuild on the soul of this little warrior. We will pick up his standard and raise it high! Carry it forward until THIS CITY - YOUR CITY - OUR CITY - HIS CITY - IS A PALACE OF GOD! IS A PALACE OF GOD! I am with you, little James. I am you.
• Yiddish as a Second Language: When Calhoun is trying to convince Cogan to let him take her in his car instead of taking public transportation:
  Calhoun: And you're just going to wait under that plastic awning for an hour and then ride a Queens bus and then slep on the subway into Manhattan-
  Cogan: Schlep! Not slep, schlep!
  Calhoun: Schlep?
  Cogan: Get the gumbo out of your Yiddish.
  • Also, Mayor Pappas is fond of bringing up menschkeit, which he describes as honor and character between men. After finding out Mayor Pappas was the one who made the call to Judge Stern to give the drug dealer probation, Calhoun calls it "120 years of graft".