Such a frustrating disappointment

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Of all the many merits of this film mentioned by various reviewers it seems that the 'mood' of the cinematography doesn't get mentioned. Perhaps the most powerful of these elements are the cars; drop dead gorgeous American beauties of the age that perfectly reflect the warm mood of celebration of life that pervades the rest of the era. For all their social and individual problems, the protagonists all get to cruise around in these incredible automobiles. The Cadillac takes centre stage but the movie abounds with reverential shots of great cars like Pontiac Catalinas, Kaiser, Oldsmobiles etc. focusing the photography and sound on their most seductive features like 'rocket' hood ornaments and almost unreally beautiful colors. The Director caught America of the 1950s 'dead on' when he makes frequent mention of their seductive influence on the generation.

I saw all 4 of the so-called "Baltimore Quadrilogy" in sequence, and, while the first three were fantastic, Diner still rose to the top for me. It was the most real, most heartfelt, and most memorable. I put on LH thinking it would be "okay", and was shocked to see it just about right up there with Diner for all the same reasons. If you've seen Scorsese's "The Bronx Tale" with DeNiro, you might notice a resemblance, down to the "forbidden" teen interracial love plot. In Bronx Tale, the "mob" has a part, but with nothing terribly eventful. In both, the family and everyday storyline take precedence, as if the mob aspects were afterthoughts. I can't say that the Jewish Mob background did LH justice, as Montagna just seemed too wishy-washy to be a front-line mobster. Montagna is a great actor, but I think he should have brought a little harder edge to the mob-orientated moments. He did fine as a father, though he could have had any occupation and the movie would not have been any the less for it. I strongly feel that if the movie did not have the mob element in it, and Montagna had a conventional occupation, the movie would have been perfect, and even more realistic than it was. The burlesque scenes again were a drag on what otherwise would have been a perfect "coming of age" film.This movie comes very close to "Diner" quality, if not for the somewhat flawed "mob" subplots....well worth seeing though!

There's very little reason for anyone younger than a boomer to see "Liberty Heights" (except for those doing historical research on what it was like to grow up in the '50's). The audience coming in after me was all senior citizens. The best part is how music is used to indicate different demographics (though not strictly accurate -- Tom Waits for burlesque? James Brown in 1954 -- shouldn't that have been Little Richard or Jackie Wilson?)While I'm a bit younger than the time portrayed, I grew up near Newark and it seems to have some similarities with Baltimore. I had similar experiences first discovering R & B on the NYC's old WWRL other than, as one character puts it in the film "regular radio," and in general had similar experiences with ethnic and racial de facto segregation (it was my Irish Catholic neighbor from parochial school who introduced me to racy Redd Fox and Moms Mabley records in her basement).Yes, I got carried away because the movie evokes nostalgia rather than cinematic reviews, because that's all it is --- a nostalgia bath.More coming-of-age Jewish princes lusting after schicksas and we do not get the Jewish woman's view point AT ALL. Don't we get enough of that from Woody Allen movies? At least the Jewish Mom is less stereotypical, being Bebe Neuwirth, getting to play a non-Lilith (as in "Frasier") Jewish mother, so she's sexy. Like with "A Walk on the Moon" last year the Yiddishe grandma is very similar to mine, so more nostalgia.It's well done for what it is.(originally written 12/19/1999)

I found "Liberty Heights" an immensely entertaining movie which shows great talent, especially actor-wise. The movie is a great portrayal of how things looked like in America in the 50's, showing religious, racial, social and other differences and also showing how these differences can easily be overcome once a person realizes(or as was the case in this movie-doesn't even consider) that different only and always means worse. Ben Foster steals the show from the first scene and Adrien Brody is in close second place. And because they had such screen persona, or power if you will, I found if distracting and a bit out of place when at the end the story shifted too much to Joe Mantegna, their movie father. I have much respect for the man, he's an immense and always fun-to-watch actor, but in this movie it was him that was overshadowed, which is ironic since HE was the one who usually did this. A great, lightheaded growing-up movie that begins and ends with a nostalgic note, once again making me wish I'd have a chance to live in that day and age. Much praise to Barry Levinson for composing "Liberty Heights". 8/10