director
Ron Shelton
screenwriter
David Ayer
story by
James Ellroy
producers
David Blocker
Caldecot Chubb
Sean Daniel
James Jacks
cinematographer
Barry Peterson
music
Terence Blanchard
editor
Paul Seydor
cast
Kurt Russell (Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.)
Scott Speedman (Bobby Keough)
Ving Rhames (Deputy Chief Holland)
Brendan Gleeson (Jack Van Meter)
Michael Michele (Sgt. Beth Williamson)
Lolita Davidovich (Sally)
Kurupt (Orchard)
Dash Mihok (Sidwell)
Khandi Alexander (Janelle)
Master P (Maniac)
Chapman Russell Way (Eldon Perry III)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 118m
u.s.
release: 2/21/03
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other ron
shelton films
reviewed on this website:
- hollywood
homicide
- tin cup
see also:
- l.a.
confidential
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In the grim and bitter cop
drama Dark Blue, Kurt Russell comes out to play. This
smart, underrated actor can usually do most roles upside down
in his sleep, but this one -- dirty L.A. cop Eldon Perry -- requires
his full attention and commitment, and he floods his scenes with
all the cynical humor and offhand callousness they can hold.
Eldon is a self-satisfied corrupt, racist bastard, and Russell,
who has always come across as an intelligent man secure in his
brainpower, gives us a protagonist who knows full well how rotten
he is but covers it with fancy justifications. Russell fans,
take note: This is probably the strongest work he's done in movies,
and that includes his John Carpenter films.
Dark Blue situates Eldon, and many equally soiled
cops, in an L.A. on the verge of flames: the movie is set days
before the 1992 Rodney King verdict that drove furious citizens
into the streets. James Ellroy, chronicler of "bad white
men" in such books as L.A. Confidential,
wrote the first version of the script, set during the Watts riots
of 1965. Screenwriter David Ayer (Training
Day) brought the script into modern times, adding his
own touches; the relationship between Eldon and his rookie partner
Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman) echoes that between Denzel Washington
and Ethan Hawke.
This movie, though, is not about the rookie's disillusionment;
it's about the gathering self-disgust of the veteran cop, who
takes orders from the even more corrupt higher-up Jack Van Meter
(Brendan Gleeson) and reacts with rage when Bobby questions Van
Meter's orders -- supposedly because Van Meter served on the
force with Eldon's father, but possibly because Eldon, too, secretly
questions it; you get the impression that Eldon's tirade against
Bobby is really against himself. Eldon has been okayed for a
lieutenant spot, and under Van Meter's watch he gets to do pretty
much what he wants, but what does it profit Eldon if he gains
the world but loses his soul?
When two snitches under Van
Meter's protection commit a robbery and a multiple homicide,
Eldon and Bobby swing into action, only they swing the wrong
way. They're encouraged to go after a pair of ex-cons who had
nothing to do with the crime, and we see the various ways the
process is bent to Van Meter's will -- he has dirt on everyone,
including Deputy Chief Holland (Ving Rhames), who regards Van
Meter with disgust and wants to bring him down. Van Meter, a
gelatinous manipulator who isn't above blackmail and murder to
keep the LAPD unit running smoothly, is straight out of James
Ellroy's playbook; he would've gotten along fine with the James
Cromwell character in L.A. Confidential.
Going far afield from his usual
sports comedies, director Ron Shelton delivers a clean, taut
piece of work with a respect for self-revealing rants. Kurt Russell
gets most of the rants, and slams them home beautifully, especially
during Eldon's career-suicidal speech at his badge ceremony.
The language in Dark Blue is coarse yet eloquent, from
Eldon's self-definition as "a gunfighter raised up in a
family of gunfighters" to his laundry list of slimy things
he's done in the name of protecting and serving. By the time
the L.A. riots flare up, Eldon points out that it's men like
himself and Van Meter who brought the city to this crisis, but
he doesn't really need to. If anyone looks at home in the riots,
it's Kurt Russell driving his car through the chaos, waving a
gun and grimacing through his cracked windshield. It's not whether
Russell is worthy of a serious cop drama; it's whether the movie
is worthy of him, and it is.
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