MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Hope’ and Glory : Sayles’ Tale Is the Most Ambitious U.S. Film of the Year

A socially conscious soap opera that makes unlikely bedfellows of intimate family drama and politically engaged theater, “City of Hope” is a bracing, invigorating piece of work.

Not only the most ambitious American film of the year, it is also just about the only one that has the temerity to seriously address major social issues and the pizazz to do it in a dramatically involving way.

Intricately interweaving the stories of nearly three dozen characters into nothing less than an investigation of the moribund state of the American dream, writer-director John Sayles has so jam-packed “City of Hope” (selected theaters) with incident and event that it feels like the cinematic version of those old Victorian triple-decker novels, the kind of cross-section of society high and low Zola or even Balzac might have attempted if he’d gotten his hands on a movie camera.

Almost daring us not to become involved, Sayles has taken as his protagonist the least sympathetic (at least initially) of the film’s many characters. Nick (Vincent Spano), the layabout son of one of Hudson City’s most powerful builders, is a substance abuser who takes advantage of anyone within earshot while at the same time whining about how life has done him in.

Quitting a construction job that didn’t even demand that he show up, Nick finds himself in a crisis state, frantic about his life and desperate not only for money but (though it comes as a surprise to him) for love as well.

Nick’s father Joe (Tony Lo Bianco), owner of a block of slum housing where a Japanese investment group would like to put up a glitzy project called Galaxy Towers, is facing problems of his own. The city (modeled loosely on Hoboken, N.J., Sayles’ longtime home) has an ambitious district attorney who’s been promised a sizable campaign contribution if he can get the land cleared pronto. So he leans on the affably corrupt mayor (Louis Zorich), who leans on his right-hand man, who just happens to be Joe’s brother.

Equally concerned about that block of housing is Wynn (Joe Morton), an African-American city councilman who is increasingly pessimistic about being able to serve his constituents while coping with the demands of Realpolitik and the scorn he faces from black nationalists who consider him a pathetic groveler for “crumbs off the white man’s table.”

Dauntingly complex as this scenario may sound, it covers only a fraction of the film’s kaleidoscopic, “wheels within wheels” plot, as the characters connect, reconnect and double back on each other. Yet, on the screen, Sayles’ command is so graceful and so complete that there is very little difficulty in following the events as they unfold.

From his first film, “The Return of the Secaucus Seven,” through “Matewan” and “Eight Men Out,” Sayles has always shown himself to be a filmmaker who liked to work with large groups of actors and who had a concern for social issues. Here, however, he outdoes himself, not only in the intricacy of his design but in how effortlessly he controls it.

Working with a wide-screen anamorphic lens suggested by cinematographer Robert Richardson, Sayles has the advantage of a frame that can give equal time to any number of characters. So instead of cutting between stories, he often merely moves the camera and brings a new group from the background to the foreground of the action, seamlessly extending his narrative web.

A novelist before he was a director, Sayles writes some of the most tastily profane dialogue in the business, pungent words that are realistic as well as dramatically potent. And by now, 10 years into his career, he has gathered a small stock company of no-nonsense actors who are perfectly at home in it.

Whether they be leads like Spano, who starred in “Baby It’s You,” and Morton, who was “The Brother From Another Planet,” or character actors like David Strathairn and Kevin Tighe who have taken on multiple roles, they do the kind of non-flashy, effective acting that is critical to Sayles’ success.

Yet because he has been around for 10 years, there is somewhat of a tendency to take John Sayles for granted, to nod briefly at his ability to write, direct and edit a film, not to mention playing a key cameo, and then to quickly move on to the newest sensation. Because he is no longer hot, we tend to forget that there is just about nobody else doing the kind of work that he does.

What Sayles believes in is spinning involving tales that interact with political and social reality. In “City of Hope” (rated R for violence, sensuality and language) he explores a whole range of urban issues, from crime and racial animosity to political corruption and the absence of leadership, taking as reference points everything from widespread reports of police brutality to the Tawana Brawley case. And Sayles isn’t dealing with these concerns just to be noble, to be a martyr to politically correct causes, but because he is absolutely (and rightly) convinced of their dramatic viability.

Don’t think everything is perfect here. Sayles can be faulted for being too schematic, for having his characters work too hard to make ideological points. Yet ultimately there is something restorative about this film, scathing though it is, just because it has been done. To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if there were enough writer-directors like Sayles, the movie business would be a very satisfying place to work, and yet not too dull to be worth working in.

‘City of Hope’

Vincent Spano: Nick

Joe Morton: Wynn

Barbara Williams: Angela

Kevin Tighe: O’Brien

Tony Lo Bianco: Joe

John Sayles: Carl

David Strathairn: Asteroid

Released by the Samuel Goldwyn Co. Writer/director/editor John Sayles. Producers Sarah Green, Maggie Renzi. Executive producers John Sloss, Harold Welb. Cinematographer, Robert Richardson. Costumes John Dunn. Music Mason Daring. Production design Dan Bishop, Dianna Freas. Running time: 2 hours, 9 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (violence, sensuality, language).