Dark Blue

This crime drama uses the Rodney King trial and subsequent L.A. riots as a backdrop for a story about institutional police corruption. Russell impresses with a dominant performance, but a better screenwriter than David Ayer could undoubtedly have worked Ellroy's story into something with much more to say about police and race politics, as ultimately this is enjoyable but hollow.

The script is nothing to write home about but I thought Russell was excellent.

Not that great of a movie, but Kurt turns in one of his best performances.

poorly paced film has one strong performance

Not much. Story shallow, directing poor, and too few action. Great play by Russel though.

Kurt Russell is one of those people that will always get kudos from me, just for his roles in Captain Ron and Escape From New York. But this movie was mediocre at best.

Setting this against the King riots could have been a masterstroke, similar to LA CONFIDENTIAL’s interweaving of historical events into its corruption narrative; overtly tips its hat to CONFIDENTIAL, especially in the character relationships, but its screenplay is far too contrived and even schmaltzy, with Russell’s painfully earnest denouement a thudding expository hit when one wasn’t needed. Bumped to a lukewarm recommendation for the power of Russell’s otherwise scorching performance.

Kurt Russell is good in the lead performance in this film. The script start off well and continues the same way for the first half of the movie. However by the final act the script has some holes and it falls apart. Overall this film is a miss.

iconogassed has it right, although russell keeps it watchable. shelton keeps stuffing the scenery down his throat and he spits it up with gusto, but the quieter scenes with his wife hint at a better movie, that charming shit-eating grin turning more dead-eyed and feral the closer you look, the grin of a man who's slurred "you gotta be heartless in my line of work!" on bitter bourbon breath a few too many times.

An honourable attempt to reckon with racist, corrupt policing and bad dads, but the events of the story are laughably contrived, which makes the use of Rodney King and the riots as backdrop and crucible seem particularly misguided. Shelton didn't take script credit but the ending is BLUE CHIPS all over again: the guilty antihero confesses his sins and indicts his co-conspirators in a public forum with press and villains present. Sorry, spoilers. For DARK BLUE CHIPS. Heh.

Ron Shelton has done similar movies before. Her the main focus goes to Kurt Russell who has very complex role and who performs very well. Plot itself is so and so.

The best part of this movie was probably the backdrop of the Rodney King era with the LAPD, but overall I just couldn't get past the complete cynicism. I also don't like seeing Kurt Russell as a bad guy since he really humanizes the character which is the wrong message here. Bland romances. Fav scene: radio announcing the King verdict and the subsequent riots which were brutal.

Doesn't really come together in the end, though the ridiculous grand-standing denouement is satisfying in a visceral way even when you know it's a fairytale. The first half or so is especially entertaining, though. The enthusiastic labrador running up to its master with what it thinks is its quarry, only to get a smack on the nose, is a pretty amazing scene, even if the plot kinda wanders off the path a bit after that.

Too often the movies we watch on the Golden Shakespeare lately end up the same: really solid performances in an otherwise lacklustre film. Kurt Russell brings out a really great performance in this, but the direction wasn't enough to give me anything and I just didn't care about what was happening until everything was already over.

A stellar performance by Kurt Russel

Kurt Russell gives a good performance. Too bad there's nothing here that you haven't seen before.

59.250

For the most part, "Dark Blue" is a surprisingly well-directed and engaging movie, but is let down by the highly predictable and melodramatic ending.

Training Day lite is how I would describe it.

"That Dark Blue's template roughly coincides with the Rodney King race riots reeks of a pathetic attempt to over-conceptualize what is, at heart, a superficial, obvious morality play." - Chuck Rudolph

Kurt is a good actor for some types of film, but for a character complex and poorly resolved ... I dont know. The story is quite cliche, I recommend only for those who like police dramas.

This is a good drama about corrupt police that unfortunately no American wanted to see in the wake of 9/11. It is, however, one of the finer examples of life imitating art. I showed up at my ladyfriend's apartment to invite her to see this movie, and she dumped me instead... so I went to see it at a theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. In the movie, Kurt Russell gets dumped, then he meanders onto Hollywood Boulevard

It's been a while since I've seen it, but it's a pretty good depiction of the LA Riots.

Russell really made that role his own and I respect what he did with it very much. But I didn't find Detective Surfer Hair believable in the least. And I'm afraid I just didn't feel like this movie had anything new to add to the dirty cop genre, nor did it do anything particularly well.

Which is easier to get in, safe or freezer?

One hell of a depressing movie. Why bother?

Pretty good cop movie focusing on the events surrounding the LA riots.

Terrible. Just terrible.

An alright drama and it was good to see Kurt Russell as a character beyond that of his niche roll of action superhero. I think he did quite a good job. However the script isn't anything amazing, it's decent, but nothing amazing and the feeling you walk away with after seeing this reflects that.

Didn't get the attention that Training Day got even though it was almost as good.