|
Dark Blue is a better film than the last Ving Rhames
movie (Undisputed) I saw, yet it didn’t provide nearly
as much food for thought. It starts out loud, with the Rodney
King video. Against the backdrop of a seething Los Angeles
and the Rodney King trial, fresh-faced Bobby Keough (Speedman)
faces a police review board, having shot and killed his first
bad guy. His grizzled partner, Eldon Perry (Russell),
is an old war horse with so many notches on his guns the review
board practically keeps a revolving door for him. Wouldn’t
you know, Keough is also the nephew of police department big
shot Jack Van Meter, played with authority by Brendan Gleeson
(The General, Gangs Of New York). Turns out, these
guys are neither knights in dark blue, nor sea-green incorruptible
public servants. These men are various shades of gray: from
Bobby, the green kid who has to be schooled, to Eldon, who
does whatever it takes, to Jack, the evil eminence grise.
“Whatever it takes” includes lying to review boards, extreme
loyalty to brother officers, and the outright murder of suspects
“shot while trying to escape.” It’s a time-tested system and
it works until ambitious Deputy Chief Arthur Holland (Rhames),
the only no-acquit vote on Bobby’s review panel, decides to
turn over the rock and see what’s underneath. With his trusted
aide, Sgt. Beth Williamson (Michele), Holland begins
to investigate the Keough shooting, and the trail soon leads
to some uncomfortable places.
That’s about it. David Ayer wrote Training Day, The Fast
And The Furious, and U-571. Clearly this
male milieu thing is his oyster. Witness the extreme sidelining
of the female roles. Granted, he tried to have some girl action
from Michael Michele’s character. She gets to carry a big
gun, but on the day her action is tantamount to tripping over
high heels. Nothing subtle here. Wicked white guys are often
in dark, low-lit—yes, sometimes even dark and bluish—spaces.
Holland and Williamson, being the forces of truth, righteousness,
and the American way, are generally in clean, well-lighted
places.
Gleeson is really good as that novel movie character, the
corrupt Irish cop, plus he got to be corrupt in some really
nice suits. And as for Kurt Russell’s performance, well, another
one of these and I’ll forgive him for Soldier. Wish
I could figure out his thing. Is it that he’s good in every
other movie, or the first two movies of every triplet… Anyway,
he done good. Ving brought his usual exceptional Juilliard
self to a role that’s actually kind of small and underwritten.
I think it’s safe to say that Ayer had a much better feel
for the bad men in this picture. He wrote fairly full (well
more showy anyway) parts for Orchard (Kurupt) and Sidwell.
They’re Van Meter’s thugs, just like Eldon, except that they’ve
actual done time. As Keough, Speedman is just another vaguely
attractive face that’s taking up screen space. He’s one of
those Matthew McConnaughey-looking fellows who make you wonder
whether one man spread his seed across the entire southwest.
The women, on the other hand, are ill-served by this story,
where, for the most part, they just want to get away from
these obsessed men. The wonderful Khandi Alexander
is totally wasted as Holland’s long-suffering wife. She even
has a scene in her underwear! It’s a mystery why Eldon’s wife
(Davidovich) is still married to him. Perhaps the presence
of female companions was meant to add texture to the characters
of the males, but actually the sudden swerves from high-tension-wire
cop stuff into the personal melodramas were just weird.
And then there are the tired movie bits, trotted out on cue:
the very popular juxtaposition of a religious service with
tense scenes of, or leading to, violence; scenes of rioting
black folks, to scare the suburbanites; and last but not least,
the very public exposé/confession scene.
But for each recycled idea, there’s something else that you
either don’t see every day or haven’t seen this particular
spin on. Once you have the Dark Blue setup, there’s
no doubt of the ultimate outcome. And then, stuff happens
and maybe the situation is in play again. This seesawing,
a Kurt Russell practically chortling in his bad-assedness
(but not even close to Denzel’s Alonzo Harris), plus
some nice supporting male performances make this a movie that’s
just so-so.
—Roxanne Bogucka
|
While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video... 
