On this week’s episode of the podcast, Jamelle and John watched “City Hall,” a 1996 political drama directed by Harold Becker and starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Danny Aiello, Bridget Fonda, David Paymer and Martin Landau. You’ll also notice a beardless Richard Schiff, Lauren Velez, and Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. In “City Hall,” Cusack plays Kevin Calhoun, the loyal deputy to Mayor John Pappas, played by Al Pacino. After a young boy and a police detective are killed in a sting gone wrong, Calhoun has to navigate a tense political situation in effort to bring the crisis to a resolution without harming the rising prospects of his boss. Unfortunately, as he soon discovers with the help of Marybeth Cogan, a lawyer for the slain cop played by Fonda, behind the deaths are a tangled web of corruption that reaches from the political machine to the courts to the mayor’s office itself. The tagline for “City Hall” is “It started with a shootout on a rainswept street and ended in a scandal that shattered New York.” You can get “City Hall” for rent or purchase on Amazon and iTunes. Our next episode will be on “Crimson Tide.” Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck . Contact us! Follow us on Twitter! John Ganz Jamelle Bouie UnclearPod And join the Unclear and Present Patreon ! For just $5 a month, patrons get access to a bonus show on the films of the Cold War, and much, much more.
