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Roy Egan (Harvey Keitel) is a thief of some expertise and notoriety, living in the Midwest. He
receives a call from his kid brother Lee (Timothy Hutton) to come to Los Angeles to take part in a heist of a jewelry store. As partners they have Jorge (Wade Dominguez), and
Skip (Stephen Dorff) who will drive the getaway car. The robbery takes place without a hitch. However, as they are dividing the $3.5 million take, Skip suddenly starts
shooting his gangmates. Roy, though wounded, manages to elude Skip, but Lee and Jorge are dead and the loot gone. Roy sets out to avenge his brother's death and retrieve what
is his share, which is the major portion of the story.
City of Sin, distributed by Largo Entertainment, is originally called City of Industry and was
released by Orion Pictures in 1997. The present film shows a poorly made story. It has disjointed sequences that do not make sense. Roy, for instance is shot by Skip in broad
daylight; suddenly it is night and he is hiding from the police in the same spot where he is shot. Apart from Roy, the characters of Lee and Skip are one-dimensional. There is
nothing known about them. The other characters, like the black thugs and the gang of Chinese associated with Skip, appear and disappear without rhyme or reason. Harvey
Keitel's acting, recognized and praised in some films, seems less marked here; although his dogged intent to get Skip is obvious. Lucy Alexis Liu, an unknown in 1997, has only
one sexy dance sequence.
City of Sin focuses on revenge, robbery, murder, greed, some nudity and sexually suggestive
acts. Most of the action takes place in the underworld of crime. In this bleak moral environment, there are still some buried traces of good to be found: Roy's love for his
kid brother, though expressed in avenging his death; Jorge and Rachel's (his wife played by Famke Janssen) love for each other and their children; and her concern for, and
nursing the twice badly wounded Roy; though she places a price of $100 thousand the second time. But while the movie says there are some good seeds buried somewhere in the
worst of us, there is still one question begging to be asked: should one be allowed to get away with the killing and mayhem he causes?
(Date reviewed: July 6, 2001)
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