Mark of A Murderer

City by the Sea

A strong story in which the familiar cop drama elements are efficiently handled to serve the beautifully played-out psychological study.

There is hurt here, and De Niro is too good an actor to reduce it to a plot gimmick. He feels it.

...the film's moody, retro-looking exteriors successfully evoke the decaying, impoverished section of New York's Long Beach (a.k.a. "The City by the Sea")...

...is full of such riddles, made more conspicuous because the bulk of what happens on screen is so tidily overwrought, emblazoned as “meaningful.”

...this formulaic police procedural thriller is lifted by a star-making turn from James Franco and a return to form for Robert De Niro.