DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
**1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1995, R, 101 minutes [1 hour, 41 minutes] [mystery/crime] starring: Denzel Washington (Easy Rawlins), Tom Sizemore (Dewitt Albright), Jennifer Beals (Daphne Monet), Dan Cheadle (Mouse), produced by Jesse Beaton, Gary Goetzman, written and directed by Carl Franklin, based on the book by Walter Mosley.
>From the title alone, "Devil In A Blue Dress" sounds like it is another retread to the mystery and crime movies of the 1930s and 40s "film noir," and it is. Anyone can make a film that looks and acts like film noir with Gothic stories of deception, intrigue, and organized crime, but this film doesn't offer anything new.
Denzel Washington stars as Easy Rawlins, a young black man living in Los Angeles in the late 1940s, who isn't poor but manages to get by with bare essentials. When he is laid off from his job he suddenly finds himself playing the role of a detective and informant for some type of mob boss, but neither he, nor the viewer really understands what he is doing, for whom, and why.
Easy is hired by a Albright (Sizemore), a typical goon, to find a mayoral candidate's fiancee, but for what purpose? We never get much of an answer, and by the time we do, the story becomes so confusing it doesn't seem relevant. As soon as we meet Easy he becomes a P.I. of sorts, but how do we know he can do it? And why would these people hire him to do this? Again, many questions like these are never answered, because we aren't supposed to think about them.
As if the search for the woman wasn't already enough, Easy has a passionate affair with a woman who later ends up dead and of course the police suspect him. So it becomes a "prove your innocence" story while still trying to solve the case of the missing dame. But the film doesn't tell this story in any kind of unique or creative manner, all we get is a rather "novel" story of the young man on the run from the mob while trying to clear his name. There is a lot of narration and cliche dialogue, but it doesn't add up to anything.
The standard formula for any mystery story is to make it as complex as possible between as few characters as possible, that way when the killer is finally caught we realize they were under our nose all along. This film takes that principal and rides it all the way, bringing in cops, mobsters, politicians, and close friends and family. This wouldn't be so bad if the story didn't have a generic mystery tone to it. Just in the way the characters speak (like Bogey), their costumes, and the basic premise is so formulated it almost seems like a satire film of sorts.
The story is confusing, the actual scenes themselves are somewhat interesting, and certainly watchable. "Devil In A Blue Dress" is not a bad movie, but it's not very good either. We don't have enough information about the characters to make us care. It's difficult to make a good mystery movie anymore, maybe they just shouldn't try so hard.
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