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You needn't have colorful Italian relatives, like myself, to enjoy this boisterous and warm-hearted film, which sidesteps cliche while embracing the hope and love in loony dysfunctional families everywhere.
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88For me, the movie's high point comes when Tony auditions for a role in a Martin Scorsese movie. Tony learns not to try so hard -- a lesson that Garcia also seems to have absorbed from City Island.
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In this story, everyone, man or woman, is a walled fortress of paranoia, secrecy, unsatisfied yearnings and anger-at-low-tide, all of which will rise and collapse over the course of what is a very funny film, and one that operates at the sea level of humanity. Quaint. Slightly peculiar.
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88A charming throwback filled with authentic characters.
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80A funny, heartfelt look at families, relationships and the lies that prop them up as much as tear them down.
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75A warmly hilarious movie about family members and their secret hearts.
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75But don't get the idea City Island is a laff riot. For this story about these people, it finds about the right tone. They're silly and foolish, as are we all, but deserve what happiness they can negotiate.
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75What's not to like?
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75The ensemble cast is strong. At its silliest comic moments it has a sitcom flavor, but the overall effect is gently amusing.
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75Not everything in City Island works - some of the secrets are obvious plot devices - but, in terms of feel-good, undemanding entertainment, this is as good as anything I have seen thus far in 2010.
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75Yes, it's really complicated, life with the Rizzos. City Island probably has too many moving parts. Still, writer-director Raymond de Felitta (Two Family House) understands that a proper farce, like a good campfire, needs plenty of friction to get started.
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75There's a certain triteness to the overarching message -- secrets will keep us apart, and the truth will set us free -- but the kind of sweetness and earnestness that's on display in City Island makes such quibbles easy to forgive.
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70Pretty damned irresistible. What begins as a winning workout in a highly familiar genre -- the white-ethnic, big-city family comedy -- gradually gains both screwball momentum and emotional power, and delivers an unexpected punch by the time it reaches its climactic pileup of characters and revelations.
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70An affectionate portrait of a lower-middle-class, outer-borough clan, City Island works best as an actor's showcase, with Margulies's aggrieved, simmering wife the stand-out.
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De Felitta ("Two Family House") gives all his actors plenty of room to roam. Garcia, afforded the chance to stretch his comic muscles and play a working stiff, comes off best, nailing Vince's good-natured vulnerability.
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70Softened by some sweet, low-key moments between Vince and a fellow acting student (a very good Emily Mortimer) and by Mr. Garcia's embodiment of disappointed middle age.
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70An amiable family comedy one step above a TV sitcom (and several steps below "Moonstruck."
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63After starring in a string of heavy dramas, Andy Garcia lightens up and goes for the funny in City Island, a breezy comedy that fits the actor like a güayabera.
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63A strident, contrived, surprisingly lovable Noo Yawk City family farce.
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63City Island is a light "family" romance that goes about as far as its novel location -- an island neighborhood tucked in the middle of New York City -- and a good cast can carry it.
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60The performances are absurdly broad, and each story line is more outlandish than the last. But De Felitta's approach is so easygoing, and the waterside setting so irresistibly charming, you're bound to walk out in a great mood. How many movies can do that for you?
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60An, at-times, marvellous muddle of high farce and low-brow chuckles.
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Somehow, writer-director Raymond De Felitta pulls off these proceedings way better than anyone has a right to, thanks to his light touch with potentially lurid plot developments and his generosity in letting actors flesh out their sitcom setups.
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58Andy Garcia reminds you of what a cunning, likable actor he can be.
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The movie too often equates drama with volume, and agita with authenticity.
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50Warm, broad and uneven, City Island almost thrives in the lite entertainment zone where ethnic family dramedy meets mildly raucous farce.
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50It has a basic goodness of heart that counteracts, if not entirely cancels out, the film's broadness and busyness.
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Frank De Felitta wrote and directed this feeble but well-stuffed comedy; Alan Arkin and Emily Morton are wasted in cameos as Garcia's drama coach and acting buddy, respectively.
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