DE Special Projects Editor

It is amazing how easily the human psyche gets off on seeing the step by step unfolding of corruption within governmental powers.

In this aspect you cannot beat City Hall in its unraveling tale of dirty deeds within New York’s mayoral office.

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Al Pacino plays the Greek, New York City Mayor John Pappas in this story of cutting deals, while trying to keep public face in the city’s political machine.

In the midst of Pappas’ plans for a better New York City, James Bone, a six-year-old, is killed in the crossfire of a gun-battle between a cop and a two-bit drug dealer. The catch is that the drug-dealer should be in jail from a drug offense which occurred years before, but was put on probation.

This incident launches an investigation that questions the integrity of everyone from the cop involved to the judge who granted him probation to the mayor himself.

In City Hall Pacino is at his best. Throughout his career he has proven to be a multi-dimensional actor in movies such as The Godfather, Scarface, Frankie and Johnny and Carlito’s Way. And once again he gives another strong performance by playing this public-pleasing mayor who, despite the public’s wishes, goes to James Bone’s funeral and says I am with you little James.

Directly after his moving speech, he promises to the congregation at the church that he will take back the streets. This promise wins the favor of everyone in attendance.

But viewers see much more of the action behind the scenes than Pappas’ constituents do. Viewers see how Deputy Mayor Kevin Calhoun (John Cusack) slick-talks the public and the press in order to air-brush the mayor’s image. What his constituents do not see is the carnival act behind the podium, where the deals and deeds are conducted by everyone but Calhoun himself.

The relationship between Calhoun and Pappas is an interesting one. Besides being close on a personal level, it is more importantly a teacher-student relation in which Calhoun admires the mayor for his strength, and the mayor sees Calhoun as a rising star.

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For all practical purposes, Calhoun is the main character in the movie. Cusack does an adequate job in portraying this friendly, native Lousianian who is almost as important as the mayor himself. He is strong, yet naive in that he does not see the crumbling walls around him until the end.

One disturbing fact about Cusack is his on-again, off-again Southern accent that is only evident when he is refering to himself as a Southerner.

Most of the action in the movie revolves around Calhoun. And despite the performance by Pacino, Calhoun is the character viewers will remember more when reflecting on the movie.

What makes the movie interesting is its cab ride through the streets of corruption where, even though we know who are in the Mafia and who are politicians, the definition of good and bad is not as obvious. The definition is most confusing when Pappas tells Mafia-man Frank Anselmo (Danny Aiello), You’re only a boss. I’m the f***ing mayor. Mayors rule.

However this confusion is healthy, and is the movies strongest point. It challenges viewers to do a double-take the next time they look into the eyes of a politician who talk about progress and prosperity, and encourages viewers to ask whose progress and prosperity.

Now that election time is upon us, negative advertising is the tool of choice among some politicians, and the media has bitten the First Lady just as hard as the jaws of Whitewater have, City Hall is timely and relevant.

Political corruption seems to be a truth which has been engraved in public opinion. In these terms, City Hall gives a universal insight into why politicians are trusted less than used car salesmen.