Silver City (2004)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Rico Z

  
  When watching this film and you see the great Chris Cooper playing a dim-witted politician, you won't be able to help relating it to real life. But this movie goes beyond satirising our incompetent President, it goes beyond just dark humor...it's making a social statement on… More
  When watching this film and you see the great Chris Cooper playing a dim-witted politician, you won't be able to help relating it to real life. But this movie goes beyond satirising our incompetent President, it goes beyond just dark humor...it's making a social statement on different levels. The environmental issue is brought up; as well as ethics and corrupt campaign processes, feelings toward undocumented individuals as well as family dysfuntion issues. The great ensemble cast helps bring many different opinions into perspective through different characters who go through different things and are all at different stages of their respective emotional and spiritual breakdowns. At first view, the movie might seem pointless and contrived, but give it a second chance or at least let it sink in for a day or two before you decide that it sucked for you! Daryl Hannah delivers a very understated, yet very fuc&ed-up performance! That's a good thing for her!

• Walter M

  
  "Silver City" starts out badly for Colorado gubernatorial candidate, Dicky Pilager(Chris Cooper) who is a son of a current U.S. Senator(Michael Murphy) and none too bright. While filming a campaign ad, supposedly showing off his fishing skills, Pilager reels in something… More
  "Silver City" starts out badly for Colorado gubernatorial candidate, Dicky Pilager(Chris Cooper) who is a son of a current U.S. Senator(Michael Murphy) and none too bright. While filming a campaign ad, supposedly showing off his fishing skills, Pilager reels in something quite unexpected - a dead body. His chief advisor, Chuck Raven(Richard Dreyfuss), works quickly at damage control and deftly employs an investigator, Danny O'Brien(Danny Huston), and gives him a list of three possible people who would most want to embarrass his candidate. O'Brien who is a disgraced former reporter goes beyond the call of duty by not only interviewing the listed people but also going deeper into the matter of the floating body. One of the strengths of John Sayles' movies in the past is how they have been cast but "Silver City" is seriously lacking in this department. Dreyfus' belicosity(didn't he also do the right-wing thing in "The American President?") and Danny Huston who is not really fit to play the lead seriously hurt the movie. Cooper is wasted playing a one-dimensional character. Of the large cast, Maria Bello playing a reporter/ex of Obrien, James Gammon as a wily sheriff and Daryl Hannah as Pilager's sister come off best. And it's great seeing Tim Roth in anything... "Silver City" is the first John Sayles movie I have been disappointed by.(The only one I have not seen is "Baby It's You.") It's quite similar to other multi-character socially relevant movies that Sayles has made like "Lone Star" and "City of Hope" but this time there is simply too much going on. It might have worked had the campaign been used only as window dressing but the caricatures of Bush and Rove(as personified by Pilager and Raven, respectively) serve as distractions from the main storyline. (Technically I agree with Sayles' politics but I think one has to go beyond simply criticizing the President and his lackey and make positive suggestions as to how the world should be run. Sayles to his credit does concern himself with the environment and how migrant workers are treated. He is also quite cynical of mainstream media and sees potential in how the World Wide Web is used in disseminating news.) Even worse, we never get to see any of the other candidates. Pilager is shown to be a right-wing demagogue but it is never explicitly stated that he is a Republican. Overall, Sayles sacrifices character and story to make a political point in "Silver City". It cannot compare with the infinitely better "Bob Roberts" as an examination of a right-wing political campaign.

• Sarah P

  
  Although I appreciate the efforts to implore the audience to see George Dubya in Chris Cooper's character, it's all a little too obvious. Not to mention the rest of the acting is sort of horrible at times and it's too long. It also seems more like a made for TV movie… More
  Although I appreciate the efforts to implore the audience to see George Dubya in Chris Cooper's character, it's all a little too obvious. Not to mention the rest of the acting is sort of horrible at times and it's too long. It also seems more like a made for TV movie than a feature film.

• Anthony V

  
  Tries hard, but doesn't come to much.

• Ashton R

  
  Now, I'm sure I would probably give this film a higher rating if I had been more able to pay attention to it (too many interruptions) but from what I did see it had a few flaws. For one, there were waaay too many characters; it kind of watered it down, and made it jump a bit too… More
  Now, I'm sure I would probably give this film a higher rating if I had been more able to pay attention to it (too many interruptions) but from what I did see it had a few flaws. For one, there were waaay too many characters; it kind of watered it down, and made it jump a bit too much and not really focus on any one point for more than a moment. The political satire was pretty good, but it was a bit dry and not particularly funny, especially when it lasted about 45 minutes longer than it needed to. If they would have worked on those points it would have been a lot better, but it just seemed too busy. But other than that it was fairly decent, although I would personally never want to watch it again, lol.