There are some films with titles that inadvertently turn out ironic and describe less of what is on screen and more of mindset of their creators. One such example is City of Industry, 1997 crime thriller directed by John Irvin.
The protagonist, played by Harvey Keitel, is Roy Egan, veteran criminal who somewhat reluctantly comes out of his semi-retirement to assist his younger brother Lee (played by Timothy Hutton) in major heist. Lee has planned robbery of jewellery store in Palm Springs and recruited two young criminals - Jorge Montana (played by Wade Dominguez) and Skip Kovich (played by Stephen Dorff). The robbery goes as planned, but Skip isn’t happy with his share of the loot and decides to kill his partners. Jorge and Lee die, while Roy survives, determined to avenge his brother and retrieve the money. He goes to Los Angeles, hoping to get some clues about Skip’s whereabouts from Jorge’s widow Rachel (played by Famke Janssen). In the meantime, Skip is aware that Roy is looking for him, so he contacts his loan shark Harvey (played by Elliott Gould), pays off his debt and hires his contacts among Chinese gangsters to take Roy out.
If there is one word that could describe City of Industry, it is “generic”. The script by Ken Solarz deals with small time gangsters fighting each other after seemingly simple job going bad and, as such, it looks like so many similar films that spawned in mid 1990s hoping to repeat success of Quentin Tarantino. Almost entire plot is collection of cliches and even the least experienced viewers would easily guess each twist and even the ending which was supposed to be ambiguous. City of Industry because of that, ironically, looks less like an original work of art and more like industrial product. Thankfully, some people behind and in front of screen are masters in what they do, so the audience won’t suffer much. Experienced British director John Irvin can’t handle some of minor plot holes, but action scenes are well done and the tempo is quick, preventing much of those shortcomings to stand out for less perceptive viewers. The greatest asset of the film is Harvey Keitel who takes his role very seriously and delivers excellent performance despite character of Roy Egan being unoriginal. Film is very serious, it lacks humour and for the most part avoids trendy experimentations with style. Less demanding viewers with nothing better to spend hour and half of their time on might appreciate it as forgettable, but adequate product of American film industry.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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