Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

DubyaHan The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

Izzy Adkins The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

Desertman84 Night and the City is a 1992 remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name.It is an adaptation of Gerald Kersh's novel of the same name. It features Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange. It tells the story of a one Harry Fabian,a two-bit lawyer in New York.He easily becomes fascinated in the world of championship prizefights in the sport of boxing and needs the help of a hardnosed promoter,Alan King.Disaster plagues Fabian as his boxers fail to pass their physicals, and Warden dies while setting up the big event. Pursued by King and his creditors, the terrified Fabian is urged by girlfriend to get of town. But he decides to face up the challenges for the first time in his life and stand his ground up to the final event of the situation.Overall,the movie does not hold up to the original film as it is far from being a classic.In fact,it was borderline average despite the presence of wonderful cast particularly De Niro and Lange. In spite of it,a viewer may enjoy the high spirits of the low life characters involved in it.

namashi_1 A remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name, 'Night and the City' is an interesting story, which begins well, but, has a lackluster culmination.'Night and the City' is about a cheating and incompetent lawyer played by De Niro, who suddenly gets obsessed on becoming a boxing promoter. The concept is weird, but at the same time, it's interesting. This remake begins well, the first 40-45 minutes, especially, are very interesting. All goes down well, except the final 20 minutes. The culmination doesn't work a bit. It's completely bland.Irwin Winkler's direction is satisfactory. The Screenplay has it's bumps here and there. Tak Fujimoto's Cinematography is average. Editing isn't anything. Music by James Newton Howard works well.In the acting department, De Niro is efficient, but goes over-the-top at some portions. Jessica Lange is the real show stealer. She's fantastic throughout. Alan King hams to the hilt. Others lend able support.As my summary says, it's strictly a one-time-watch. Not much to rave or rant about!

classicsoncall I tuned in last night to see "Night and the City" starring Richard Widmark; that's what the TV cable listing showed was playing. It was already a minute or so after the opening credits rolled, and with no hint of a glorious black and white 1940 flick I was ready to change channels. Then DeNiro comes on screen and curiosity got the better of me. It took a while to sort out what was going on with his character, a shyster lawyer by the name of Harry Fabian. Yet at the same time, there was a train-wreck quality to his acting here that made me want to continue the ride. What makes the film memorable is the utter creepiness of his character, a despicable self promoter who's willing to use anyone and anything to get what he wants, as in money and lots of it. He gets the bright idea of becoming a boxing promoter, and almost immediately becomes embroiled in a scheme that's bound to land him in big time trouble with friends and foes alike. Mostly foes, as who would be friends with this guy? Which is why I couldn't figure where the fascination came from for Helen (Jessica Lange) to play Harry along in a convoluted romance. Yeah, he might be able to pull a few strings to get her a state liquor license, but that was a fake, like just about everything else to do with Harry.Depending on your mood, the finale will leave you perplexed or glad that it's over. However if you can appreciate some clever acting, you won't be disappointed by DeNiro's turn as Harry Fabian here. Some might call it over the top, but I didn't get the sense that DeNiro was forcing the characterization. He WAS Harry Fabian. I also liked Alan King's out of character turn as hood Boom Boom Grossman, and Jack Warden as his retired boxing brother Al. Warden reminded me here of Burgess Meredith in the Rocky films, and I tried picturing him in the role of Mickey Goldman. It might have worked with a little more crust.Hard to say whether to recommend this one. The clue seems to be whether you're a DeNiro fan or not. Fans will get a different look at his range as an actor, but with an ending that might leave you frustrated after having sat through Harry's ordeal. At least now I have an incentive to get hold of the Richard Widmark original to see if he fared any better or worse.

Michael_Elliott Night and the City (1992) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Remake of the 1950 Richard Widmark noir has Robert DeNiro playing Harry Fabian, a real loser who works as an attorney chasing ambulances and various other lowlifes. He finally grows tired of being one of the small guys so he tries raising enough money to start a boxing match but soon he's butting heads with mobsters. If you're looking for a direct remake then you can pretty much forget about it as this Richard Price scripted film is more comedy than anything else. Well, I can't say it's a comedy because I'm not quite certain what it is. Apparently Martin Scorsese was going to direct this but ended up backing out only six years later the picture got started up again by Winkler, who by this time decided to direct the thing himself. Big problem. Winkler's direction is all over the place and it really hurts the film as there's never any real indication that the man behind the camera knows what he's trying to do. Sometimes the overall mood is comical but at other times it turns rather dark (only to be watered down). I'm really not sure what they were going for but you certainly shouldn't expect any of the darkness of the original movie. This baby is pretty much it's own thing and even though the direction is bad there's still enough going on here to make it worth viewing. It seems DeNiro is either love or hate here but I found his performance to be rather refreshing and I found him to be very entertaining in the role. Again, he isn't as dark or as menacing of Widmark as he plays the character more happy-go-lucky and there's constantly a smile on his face as he goes from one bad situation to the next. I found these happy approach to be rather fun to see as we don't often get to see DeNiro in this type of role. It's not a complete masterpiece but if you're a fan I think you'll enjoy seeing it. Jessica Lange plays his love interest and manages to turn in a fine performance even though the screenplay doesn't offer her too much. I thought her and DeNiro, their third film together, did a nice job and I wish their scenes had been written a little better. We do get a nice supporting cast including Jack Warden as a former boxer with a bad heart who is constantly cussing or wanting to fight. He adds a lot of charm to the film each time he's in a scene. Eli Wallach has a brief role and it's always nice to see him. Cliff Gorman nearly steals the film as Lange's husband who doesn't know everything that's going on. We even get a cameo by Regis Philbin who plays himself in a scene that will remind many of the one in THE KING OF COMEDY when DeNiro busts in on Jerry Lewis. Needless to say, it's the performances that make this film worth viewing and we also get a pretty good music score as well as some nice covers of some classic tunes. If a remake should try and be completely different from the original then this movie does just that. This isn't a classic like the original film but there are enough interesting things to make it worth viewing but I'm sure most will agree when it's over that the thing should have been much, much better.