{ { Infobox film
|name = City of Hope
|image = Cityofhopeposter.jpg
|caption = Theatrical release poster
|director = John Sayles
|producer = Harold WelbJohn Sloss
|screenplay = John Sayles
|starring =
|music = Mason Daring
|cinematography = Robert Richardson
|editing = John Sayles
|studio = Esperanza FilmsThe Samuel Goldwyn Company
|distributor = Esperanza FilmsThe Samuel Goldwyn Company
|released =
Los Angeles 10-25-1991
|runtime = 129 minutes
|country = United States
|language = English
|budget = $3 million<ref name=sayles>Gerry Molyneaux, "John Sayles, Renaissance Books, 2000 p. 195.</ref> |gross = $1.3 million (US). }}City of Hope is a 1991 American drama film written, directed, and edited by John Sayles. The film features Vincent Spano, Stephen Mendillo, and Chris Cooper.
Plot
Nick Rinaldi is the aimless son of corrupt property developer Joe Rinaldi, who is determined to provide for Nick after the death in Vietnam of the Rinaldi's older son. Rinaldi owns a derelict apartment building that blocks the construction of a mixed-use development that the equally corrupt mayor pushes hard for to boost his re-election chances. Bored at the no-show job organized by his father, Nick quits and turns to crime to assuage his debts and drug addiction. Joe is introduced arguing with idealistic alderman Wynn (Morton) about hiring more African-Americans, which Rinaldi is hesitant to do for political reasons. Nick joins his friends, low-rent thugs Bobby and Zip, who work for small-time hoodlum Carl. Carl sets the men up with access to a local electronics store. Unbeknownst to the men, the owner is a close friend of Joe's. While breaking into the store, they are thwarted by the store's new security guard (who is Wynn's brother-in-law), who threatens to shoot them despite his gun being fake. Bobby and Zip are arrested and jailed while Nick flees. While the pair sit in jail, annoyed by delusional homeless man Asteroid, Nick begins to fall for Angela, a waitress at a local restaurant, who has a child by Rizzo, a young and hot-headed policeman. Rizzo, who stalks his ex-wife, is infuriated that Rinaldi is pursuing Angela, and hassles two young black boys as a result. The boys, deciding that they may as well live up to the way the police portray them, attack a professor jogging in a nearby park, later falsely claiming that the professor made advances toward them. Wynn privately expresses doubt in the story of the boys, but worries of his perception from the black community if he does not stand with the boys, especially from Malik, an intense composite character that represents black power, Nation of Islam, and Pan-Africanist ideals.
Nick's involvement in the botched robbery is revealed by Carl, who blackmails Joe into agreeing to allow one of Carl's henchmen to flood and deliberately set a fire in Rinaldi's slum (so that it may be cleared for the mayor's project) in exchange for the police dropping Nick from their warrant lists. Joe's relationship with Nick also takes a sour turn when Nick learns that his older brother, who Nick has been in the shadow of his whole life, was deployed to Vietnam as an alternative to prison for injuring a young woman as a result of a DUI while joyriding. Elsewhere, community organizers rope Wynn into defending the stories of the boys that attacked the jogger. Realizing that the accused pedophile is one of his old college professor coworkers, Wynn visits him privately to encourage the man to drop the charges, arguing that if he goes public, the accusations of pedophilia will remain linked to his name. Carl's henchman torches Joe's apartment building, but Joe quickly realizes that the plan has gone awry as a young Hispanic woman and her baby, squatting in a part of the building thought by Joe to be abandoned, perish in the blaze. Wynn visits Desmond, one of the young boys involved in the jogger attack, and learns that the boys were lying. However, before he can act, the black community center reports that the professor agreed to drop the charges against the boys.