This feature might work better as a television series, but Garcia himself gives the picture some much-needed ballast.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 22, 2010

I won't make great claims for Raymond De Felitta's film - it hardly makes them for itself - but I will say this for it: as an ensemble acting workout, it exceeds expectations from the top down.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 22, 2010

An at-times marvellous muddle of high farce and low-brow chuckles.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 22, 2010

The script, by dyed-in-the-wool New York indie filmmaker Raymond De Felitta, is like someone's homework for a screenwriting course. The secrets aren't interesting and you know a big showdown at the end is a given.

| Jul 22, 2010

Andy Garcia demonstrates real comic chops in this charming comedy of family dysfunction.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

This is the kind of movie that could easily sink into comedy hijinks as broad and flat as pappardelle. But it doesn't. De Felitta... makes no apologies for the outrageousness of the coincidences and gloriously knotty relationships and secrets.

| Apr 29, 2010

The slice-of-life comedy City Island is a charming throwback filled with authentic characters.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2010

A funny, heartfelt look at families, relationships and the lies that prop them up as much as tear them down.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2010

Writer-director Raymond De Felitta is essentially offering a kinky-comic New Yawk version of a Greek tragedy here, and even if the whole thing is pretty implausible, it's also fairly entertaining.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 16, 2010

It has a basic goodness of heart that counteracts, if not entirely cancels out, the film's broadness and busyness.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 16, 2010

[A] noisy, eccentric, bizarrely lovable film.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 9, 2010

A very funny film, and one that operates at the sea level of humanity. Quaint. Slightly peculiar.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 9, 2010

All the performances are warmly engaging, even though the characters are broad and scenarios occasionally extreme. For those tired of clashing titans or weepy teen romances, City Island is a breath of fresh air.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 8, 2010

In spite of an overly elaborate series of mix-ups that are revealed in a paroxysm of absurdity in the final scene, the movie has a genuine heart and a delicate earnestness that is as amusing as it is affectionate.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 8, 2010

The cast proves game for anything, from Emily Mortimer as Vince's floridly English acting-class partner to a beleaguered, bewhiskered Strait, here displaying a comic prowess and fond knack for exasperation.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 2, 2010

The 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.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 2, 2010

The outer-borough oddities of City Island are hard to resist.

| Apr 2, 2010

Another expertly written joyride through the confines of narrowminded provincialism to cleansing self-awareness from indie director de Felitta.

| Apr 2, 2010

The complications have the appeal of a classic farce, and if the movie's humor requires a suspension of disbelief, the actors are terrific, and there's much pleasure in watching the way the drama redoubles and resolves.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 2, 2010

A treat for movie lovers everywhere -- even if you've never heard of the community where it takes place.

Full Review | Apr 2, 2010