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Dark Blue
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Powerful drama set against the backdrop of the 1992 Rodney King-police brutality trial, in which a corrupt LAPD cop (Kurt Russell) and his rookie partner (Scott Speedman) investigate a quadruple homicide unaware their greedy supervisor (Brendan Gleeson) was behind the crime. In stark, even shrill fashion, director Ron Shelton explores levels of generational police corruption, intimidation, brutality and casual racism, but the gripping narrative eventually moves toward a morally redemptive conclusion. Some intense violence, constant rough language and racial epithets, an implied sexual encounter and fleeting nudity. A-III -- adults. (R) 2003
Full Review
A long-corrupted Los Angeles cop is forced to confront his choices and the prices paid for it in the shrill but gripping drama "Dark Blue" (United Artists).
The story takes place over five days in 1992 in Los Angeles with the backdrop of jurors struggling toward a verdict in the Rodney King police brutality trial.
A rookie member of the Los Angeles Police Department's elite Special Investigations Squad, Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), has just been cleared of using undue force in the death of a suspect but he's uneasy about how it really went down. His boss and uncle, Jack Van Meter (Brendan Gleeson), and his partner, third-generation cop Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell), are brutally tough, racist cops who know how to work the system in their favor.
The only dissenting voter in Keough's inquiry, Assistant Chief Holland (Ving Rhames), is an African-American determined to root out corruption in the division, and he's certain his rival Van Meter, as well as Perry, are dirty. And he's right. Perry doesn't hesitate to plant evidence or shoot a suspect if he feels it's in the cause of justice, but he's not out for personal gain. But Perry doesn't know Van Meter is.
When Van Meter assigns Keough and Perry to investigate a quadruple homicide committed during a convenience store robbery, the audience knows Van Meter actually ordered the robbery and can't afford his crackhead killer thieves to be caught. And so when Van Meter lies that the guilty twosome couldn't have done it, a loyal Perry pins the crime on two other known criminals and makes sure each is shot dead during the arrest so they can't live to prove their innocence.
Meanwhile, Holland enlists the help of his assistant and former lover, Sgt. Beth Williams (Michael Michele), to bring down the dirty cops. To her horror she finds the white cop she has been having an interracial, no-names affair with is Keough.
As Keough has trouble living with his conscience, Perry's wife (Lolita Davidovich) leaves him, forcing him to question how he has lived his life, even as the desperately fearful Van Meter conceives a diabolical plot to evade discovery.
Based on a story by James Ellroy and directed by Ron Shelton, the dense narrative allows for some fine characterizations -- especially on the part of Russell, who gives his best performance in years. Cocky and spouting repellent opinions about social justice, Russell transforms his cowboy cop incrementally into a man forced by events to confront his demons and accept responsibility for crimes he had heretofore easily justified. His dynamic portrayal is central to keeping the busy story focused.
Rhames and Gleeson also deliver keen performances, although Rhames' upstanding cop contrasts with Gleeson's villain in almost too black-and-white, good-vs.-evil terms.
Initially a film that seems set on demonizing the LAPD, it reveals itself as more nuanced than that, exploring several levels of corruption involving generational expectations, sheer financial greed, peer pressure and well-intended but wrongheaded vigilante justice.
With rapid crosscut editing, director Shelton maintains a solid level of suspense although the violence and deplorable language can be intense and off-putting, though realistic, given the characters and subject matter.
With its grim ending as Los Angeles erupts in riots, "Dark Blue" scores as a film noir that is about more than color -- an introspective look at urban police work and those who wander from the straight and narrow with disastrous consequences.
Due to some intense violence, constant rough language and racial epithets, an implied sexual encounter and fleeting nudity, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.
Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic
merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating,
the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief
synopsis of the movie.
The classifications are as follows:
- A-I -- general patronage;
- A-II -- adults and adolescents;
- A-III -- adults;
- A-IV**
- L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
- O -- morally offensive.
** Discontinued classification. All archived movies that were originally in the A-IV category are now classified as L.
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