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The struggle between good and evil, interracial conflict, father-and-son relationships; these are all standard fare for American cop films, and frankly, Dark Blue (2003) never ventures too far out of the ordinary. Which is not to say that it is a film without a heart, or that the acting is bad, or that the issues are not pertinent - but these are issues covered in an infinitely more sophisticated and contemporary way in the latest American TV cop serials, such as The Shield on Channel 5. Dark Blue is a film that I wouldn't mind sitting through at home on a cold evening, slice of pizza in hand. But as a night out at the cinema, it's a bit too formulaic for its own good.The film is set in Los Angeles, at the time when America was waiting for the verdict from the trial of the police officers charged with the brutal beating of Rodney King. In case we can't remember what happened, director Ron Shelton (White Men Can't Jump, Bull Durham) cuts in a slice of the video footage of the incident. The use of such disturbing pictures seems almost pornographic. Although the opening sequence of the film is about as unoriginal as you can imagine, Shelton ably establishes the sense of tension in the city in subsequent sequences, so to use the Rodney King footage as well seems unnecessary. Perhaps a younger audience needed to be reminded. What follows is the induction of rookie Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman) into LAPD Special Investigations Squad's (SIS) style of policing at the hands of maverick cop Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell). Speedman looks suspiciously like a younger version of Russell, even down to the trademark long wavy blond hair, so I can only conclude that Shelton deliberately wanted us to see it as some kind of father-son / big brother–little brother relationship. Needless to say, Keough is led astray by the super-tough Russell, who in turn has been led astray by the corrupt police chief, Jack van Meter (Brendan Gleeson). Throw in a little racial rivalry, minor marital infidelity, total marriage breakdown, urban rioting and a few untimely deaths and you're left with an off-the-shelf exploration of the complexities of human nature. We may start off innocent, but there are legions of wicked people waiting to corrupt us, whilst other wiser, better (though not entirely unblemished) people battle for our souls. Sadly this all makes for a deeply unmemorable movie. Shelton handles the action scenes adeptly, but the more intimate sections are very dull. David Ayer's script (adapted from a James Ellroy story) occasionally catches fire but covers little new ground. As for the acting, well, it's all perfectly adequate. Speedman is suitably pretty. Love interest Michael Michele is appropriately sexy but looks ill at ease handling a gun as policewoman Beth. Ving Rhames is seriously dull as good cop / not quite so good husband Holland, and Gleeson enjoys himself as much as he can in a fairly two-dimensional villain role. But ultimately this is Russell's film and, much to my surprise, he is by far the best thing in it. Whether chomping on a cigar or generally chewing the scenery, shooting either his mouth or his gun off, he is totally engaging and plays this part of a fundamentally fair-minded man who has lost his soul to the absolute limit. He's given some ostentatiously show-stopping speeches to do, but handles them admirably. He even convinces in the marriage breakdown scenes with his disillusioned wife (Lolita Davidovich). It's a highly enjoyable performance, and the only thing which manages to lift this film out of the purely humdrum - but it's not enough on its own, and really there's no need to see this film before it hits the small screen.
Reviewed by John Gorick
Reader comments about Dark Blue
Ian Haydn Smith (ihsmith@yahoo.co.uk) writes:
I agree with John Gorick that Dark Blue may not be the last word in contemporary urban thrillers, but such a dismissive review seems unfair of a film that, by today's standards of social/political film-making, is at the very least challenging.
Recent years may have seen the proliferation of impressive and occasionally excellent police dramas on television, which tackle similar conflicts to those that arise in Ron Shelton’s film. However, like James Ellroy’s body of work, which has gone to great lengths to portray a society in which racism is not so much an opinion or attitude as a virus, and as a result descended to the most depraved depths of human intolerance and prejudice, Dark Blue doesn’t confine its bigotry to a few irredeemable characters. Racism is not just an element of the film’s narrative thrust, it is a by-product of the environment in which that narrative is set. As with Spike Lee’s best work, Shelton shows a society ingrained with hatred and narrow-mindedness. Brendan Gleeson’s Jack may present an over-familiar representation of a red-neck racist – John is right in identifying the superficiality of the character – but his is not the most disturbing character in the film. Bobby and Eldon are behavioural racists, hardly fervent in their bigotry, but bigots nonetheless. They are the everyday face of racism. When Bobby tells Eldon that he is involved with a black police officer, it is all he can do to defend his actions by implying that she is not just a black woman, but something different, thus justifying to his partner his actions. In these men’s company, the cotton fields don’t seem that far away.
As a screenwriter (he penned the excellent Under Fire) and film-maker, Shelton has detailed prejudice both within and outside America’s borders, with impressive clarity. Much of his work has cleverly used that country’s preoccupation with sport as the platform from which to launch his critiques. In his best work, White Men Can’t Jump and Cobb (a film that could rightfully claim to be the Citizen Kane of sports movies), Shelton has used a deftness of touch and impressive deployment of comedy, to uncover prejudices that permeate this very American way of life. And for a director whose films are located at the heart of masculine culture, he has proven himself effective in the representation of both sexes (which, unfortunately, is one of the elements that does fail to work in his new film. Both Michael Michele and Shelton regular Lolita Davidovich’s characters are too sketchy to convince).
Finally, it strikes me that Shelton is entirely justified in his use of the Rodney King footage. The point of the film, the reason scribe David Ayer updated Ellroy’s 60s-set story, was to highlight the brutality of racist attitudes still present in contemporary LA. The ferocity of the beating Rodney King sustained may not justify the events that took place following the acquittal of the offending officers, but it goes some way to offering an understanding of why LA erupted with violence. Its inclusion within the film grounds the narrative in the reality of LA's troubled existence.
Dark Blue may be flawed. Nevertheless, it is a powerful and angry film about a subject that, like the belief system on which racism is based, should be given no tolerance.
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