IT'S a well-intentioned film, with the lofty theme of commitment, but City Of Joy (World, 9.35pm) does tend to lay it on a bit thick. If director Roland Joffe had cut the sentiment and proceeded directly to the nitty-gritty, it might have been less of a melodrama and more of a drama.
As it is, City Of Joy is a noble but ineffectual film in which the star, Patrick Swayze, learns as a man lessons he really should have learned as a boy. He's a cynical doctor, well-bred and evidently with cash in the bank, who only 'finds himself' when he becomes involved with the poor and helps them in their struggle against small-time gangsters.
Some of the same ground was trod, to much better effect, in Salaam Bombay.
City Of Joy is also notable for predictable plotting and blindingly obvious character development. Swayze does his best, but is overshadowed by Pauline Collins, as the fiery Irish nurse, and Om Puri, as the decent, hard-working, but dirt-poor rickshaw man they both befriend.
The finale is so uplifting it will make even the strongest among you heave.
On Pearl, The 10 Million Dollar Getaway (9.30pm) is an easier version of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, which touches on the same tale. It tells in linear fashion the story of a robbery at New York City's Kennedy Airport in 1978.
The raid was masterminded by a professional gangster called Jimmy 'The Gent' Burke with his gang of nouveau-mafioso hoods.