City Hall is a 1996 film directed by Harold Becker. It stars Al Pacino, John Cusack and Bridget Fonda.
The plot follows the aftermath of the death of a boy caught in the crossfire of a shootout between a drug dealer and a detective.
According to the website BoxOfficeMojo.com, the film grossed an estimated $20 million in the U.S.
This was director Harold Becker's second collaboration with Al Pacino. Becker directed Pacino in Sea of Love released seven years earlier.
John Pappas is the mayor of New York and has far more grand ambitions, including the governor's office and the White House. His loyal deputy mayor is Kevin Calhoun, a young man from Louisiana who grew up loving politics.
One day, an off-duty police detective named Eddie Santos is ambushed by Tino Zapatti, a criminal with mob ties. They kill each other in a shootout with a stray bullet also causing the death of an innocent small boy named James Bone.
An investigation leads to a question as to why Judge Walter Stern, an old friend of the mayor's, had set Zapatti free on probation for a recent crime rather than send him to jail. Legal aid Marybeth Cogan, meanwhile, attempts to see that Santos' widow receives his full benefits, but there seems to be a conspiracy to paint the slain detective as less than honest.
Plot
Barkley Michaelson is in a deep life rut. He's struggling to finish his PhD thesis when his father, the learned Eli Michaelson, wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Barkley and his mother, Sarah, a renowned forensic psychiatrist, now have the ill-fortune of living with a man-eating monster whose philandering ways have gotten less and less discrete. As if Barkley's world is not bad enough, on the eve of his father receiving the Nobel, Barkley is kidnapped and the requested ransom is the $2,000,000 in Nobel prize money. Needless to say, Eli refuses to pay it and so starts a venomous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge. In the words of Michel De Montaigne, the 16th century philosopher: "There is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead."
Keywords: airplane, airport, automated-teller-machine, award-ceremony, bag-of-money, bag-over-head, bare-chested-male, beating, begins-with-narration, bicycle
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Lust, betrayal, kidnapping... and you thought your family had problems!
City Hall: Crazy's just a choice, Barkley.
Eli Michaelson: If anyone in this room ever doubted my intellectual superiority, or your get fortune to be under my incomparable tutelage, you can now formally kiss my fine white ass.
Sarah Michaelson: I leave you with a question. A northern California dairy farmer murders 3 young girls, performs sexual acts with their dead bodies, then eat portions of their fleshy thighs - is the dairy farmer crazy?::Class Members: [all nod yes]::Sarah Michaelson: And let me give you a hint, this is not a question that can be answered with a yes, or a no, or a fuck yeah.
Harvey Parrish: I'm a scientist too, and my empirical observations tell me that someone's going to shoot you long before I ever fire you.
City Hall: Tomorrow I'm off to claim my Nobel Prize. Joining me will be my wife, Sarah, who I am certain has only been able to put up with my manias and eccentricities all these years because her definition of crazy is so narrow.
Barkley Michaelson: [first time trying to talk her] I wish I could offer to buy you a hamburger or something, but I don't have any money at all.::City Hall: I'm a vegetarian.::Barkley Michaelson: That's uh, that's a good thing, especially since if I ever have to eat you. Because vegetarians taste better than carrion eaters.
Eli Michaelson: I'll tell you, it's lonely at the top.::Bill Canepa: Sir?::Eli Michaelson: You're lucky you're not a genius.::Bill Canepa: If we get your son back alive, Dr. Michaelson, we're all geniuses.
Barkley Michaelson: It isn't evil to eat the dead. It's recycling. True evil is to eat a man alive.
[last lines]::Eli Michaelson: [to student] I'm free tonight. And you?
[first lines]::Barkley Michaelson: The French essayist, Michel de Montaigne, once said, "I think there is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead." The wisdom of it. When you were a kid with an open soul, they told the world consists of good guys and bad guys. I always liked the bad guys. Scar Face over Superman.
The city hall in my mind, met last night
Rumors of reelection started to fly
It's my funeral today, my funeral today
I laid it down Underneath the sound
It's my principle concern, my principle concern is what you say
But I wanted it this way.
Cause I'm throwin down without a fight
You're more than welcome to look around
Consult your checklist go underground
I'll claim a stake here inside the frame
But I'm going under another way
I won't return after today
So I'm at liberty to say what's on my mind
And it some I like
You can't watch me, you can't make me like before
When I was yours when all I wanted was the door
So I'm throwin down without a fight
You're more than welcome to look around
Consult your checklist go underground
I'll claim a stake here inside the frame
But I'm going under another way
Decision on the dock head
Make up your mind and if you get consensus
Drop me a line
The city hall in my mind, got together last night
Rumors of reelection started to fly
All you people up there in City Hall,
You're fuckin' it up for the people that's in the streets.
This is a song for the people in the streets,
Not the people City Hall.
All you motherfuckers in the streets it's time to rise up,
Come along children and fuckin' rise!
Lots of times when me and KG are watchin'
All the fuckin' shit that goes down at City Hall,
We get the feeling we should fuck shit up,
Yeah we should fuckin' start a riot.
A Riot!
We have 'em screaming in the streets,
we have 'em tippin' over shit and breakin' fuckin' windows of small businesses,
and settin' fuckin' fires!
and settin' fuckin' fires!
and settin' fuckin' fires!
And then after the smoke is cleared,
and the rubble has been swept away,
me and KG will peek out our heads.
We've been watching the riots on a monitor twenty floors below sea level,
from a bunker.
We did it Rage-Kage, we beat the bastards of City Hall!
But now what will we do?
We must rebuild. But who will lead us in the rebuilding process?
Man, it's got to be someone with the know-how
and the elbow grease to lead us to a new land.
No, not me and KG, we don't have the cognitive capacity to lead...
Alright, we'll do it!
We'll lead as Two Kings,
We'll lead as Two Kings.
Ahhhaaa (Two Kings, we'll lead as Two Kings)
Ah-ha ah-how,
We'll lead as Two Kings.
The first decree is to legalize marijuana.
The tyranny and the bullshit's gone on too long.
You old fuckin' shrivs who blocked it's legalization,
you're banished from the land!
We'll lead as Two Kings,
We'll lead as Two Kings.
Ahhhaaa (Two Kings, we'll lead as Two Kings)
Ah-ha ah-how,
Lead as Two Kings.
The second decree: no more pollution, no more car exhaust,
or ocean dumpage. From now on, we will travel in tubes!
We'll lead as Two Kings, oh, yeah,
We'll fuckin' lead as Two Kings.
Get the scientists working on the tube technology, immediately.
(Tube technology.) Chop, chop, let's go.
Third decree: no more... rich people: and poor people.
From now on, we will all be the same... ummm, I dunno,
I gotta think about that...
We'll lead as Two Kings
Ah yeah, ah yeahhhahahaha.
Ha-ha-ho-hee, ha-ha-ho-hee-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho-ho.
Oh my God.
Ahh... What?
Dude, the red phone is flashing.
Oh, yeah.
Let me scoop that up. Hello? Two Kings.
Who is it?
What?! No! No fucking way!
What?
Rage, there's a potato famine in Idaho, you gotta go down there!
Oh my God... what?
Dude, I gotta stay here!
Why do I have to go?
Please! Please!
Oh, God, okay.
Awesome... is he gone? Alright, emergency meeting of Parliament.
All right Parliament, I know this is fucked up,
but Rage, he can't be King anymore.
Dudes, he's encroaching on my decrees!
Seriously, let's make him "Duke," a kick ass "Duke."
Or "leader formerly known as King," but-- uh-oh he's comin' back...
We'll lead as Two Kings, oh yes
we'll really lead as Two Kings.
Uh, dude?
Rage.
I went all over Idaho...
Yeah?
Uh, plenty of potatoes everywhere.
What? There was no famine?
Yeah, there was no famine, no.
Dude.
I don't know what's uh...
A toast...
A toast...
Long live the "D."
Long live the "D."
Long live me. I'm sorry, I poisoned your wine.
What?
For the good of the land.
You p-- I poisoned yours... huh heh, as well.
Noooooooooo!!!!!
City, city, city, city, city, city, shitty.
Shitty, city, shitty, shitty, city, city, shitty.
Hall, hall, hall, hall, hall, hall, hall, hall.
People inside me are askin' me to smoke up City Hall,
'Cause no one here is talkin'.
People inside me are askin' me to blow up City Hall,
'Cause no one here is rockin'.
People inside me are askin' me to blow up City Hall,
'Cause everyone is Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots.
Everyone is Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots.
Everyone is Rock-'em Sock-'em GO! OH!
Don't, cut that part out.
We've got it.
Um, do you believe in God?
I believe, I believe.
You do?
I believe in God. I believe in God.
Y'do--
I believe in God.
Do you?
I believe in God.
Malibu Nights
Yeah, but you didn't fuckin' come out with this (one)--!
I got some lyrics.
Malibu nights, tangerine dreams,
Malibu neighs, Malibu dreams,
Malibu, makin' a poo.
Stinky poo, lookin'd view.
Because it's time for my breakfast,
It's time for some cheese.
It's time for the stink,
time for the breeze,
Me and my baby on a February holiday
'Cause we got the news
Yeah we got the news
500 miles and we're gonna make it all the way
We got nothing to lose
Got nothing to lose
Been ten years waiting
But it's better late than the never we've been told before
We can't wait one minute more
Oh, me and my baby driving down
To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
Oh, me and my baby stand in line
You never seen a sight so fine
As the love that's gonna shine at City Hall
Me and my baby been through a lot of good and bad
Learned to kiss the sky
Made our mamas cry
Seen a lot of friends, after giving it all they had
Lay down and die
Lay down and die
Ten years into it
Here's our window at the Vegas drive-thru chapel
Ain't too much for 'em all to handle
Oh, me and my baby driving down
To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
Oh, me and my baby stand in line
You never seen a sight so fine
As the love that's gonna shine at City Hall
Outside they're handing out donuts and pizza pies
For the folks in pairs
In their folding chairs
My baby's looking so damn pretty with those anxious eyes
Rain-speckled hair
And my ring to wear
Ten years waiting for this moment of fate
When we say the words and sign our names
If they take it away again someday
This beautiful thing won't change
So oh, me and my baby driving down
To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
Oh, me and my baby stand in line
You never seen a sight so fine
As the love that's gonna shine
Oh, me and my baby driving down
To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
Oh, me and my baby stand in line
You never seen a sight so fine
I'll meet you outside the city halls,
I'll be standing on the step of the hall,
And we wait until i find you.
You said "Be there or be square and meet me outside the
hall".
Well how can i refuse such an elequent misuse of a
phrase that i never would.
In the back of your mind,
You leave it alone,
But after you leave you'll be breathing alone.
Could I,
Could I,
Could I circle.
What could I,
could I,
could I circle.
What could I,
could I,
could I circle,
could I. Ooooh.
We're still by the side of city halls,
And 5 minutes is a month in the past,
When noones waiting for find you.
And people stop and stare at the outside of the hall,
And other lifes we don't succeed,
But the rain in albient street,
Fills a silence that no worlds could.
In the back of your mind,
You leave it alone,
But after you leave you'll be breathing alone.
Could I,
Could I,
Could I circle.
What could I,
could I,
could I circle.
What could I,
could I,
could I circle,
could I. Ooooh.
Could I,
Could I,
Could I circle.
What could I,
could I,
could I circle.
What could I,
could I,
could I circle,
The city hall in my mind, met last night
Rumors of reelection started to fly
It's my funeral today, my funeral today
I laid it down Underneath the sound
It's my principle concern, my principle concern is what you say
But I wanted it this way.
Cause I'm throwin down without a fight
You're more than welcome to look around
Consult your checklist go underground
I'll claim a stake here inside the frame
But I'm going under another way
I won't return after today
So I'm at liberty to say what's on my mind
And it some I like
You can't watch me, you can't make me like before
When I was yours when all I wanted was the door
So I'm throwin down without a fight
You're more than welcome to look around
Consult your checklist go underground
I'll claim a stake here inside the frame
But I'm going under another way
Decision on the dock head
Make up your mind and if you get consensus
Drop me a line
The city hall in my mind, got together last night