Saturday, October 2, 2010

Colors (1988) - a guest review

This review brought to you by A. Lee and most likely a substance that starts with the letter W:

Even the worst movies to come onto THIS are great in their ability to depict the world as it was 22 years ago. Supposedly. Actually, only the aerial and drive-by shots in the opening credits--with their frighteningly realistic video of scary looking poor people in dangerous neighborhood--can pass for a semi-truthful depiction of the world in 1988.

The actual plots of these movies tend to focus on white working-men's power struggles in some inner city police force. Often the white man who manages to catch the most
non-white men is the one to quickly rise in the ranks.

While the plot focuses on the competing white cops, brief scenes of competing black gangs scream and lunge at each other while climbing the bars of opposing prison cages like wild
animals.

All this while
Robert Duvall is out saving the neighborhood and maintaining his virility in the face of that overly confident rookie, Sean Penn.

Keep your
People's History of the United States next to you when you watch this one. And a healthy admiration for the acting skills of Duvall, Penn, and...is that Don Cheadle?? Holy shit!


2 comments:

  1. ... substance starting with the letter W? Water? Whoppers? Wombats? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wonomonojuana is the technical term. Although, on the streets, we call it Lady Wonomono. It's not really shorter - it's just more fun to say. Rolls off the tongue.

    ReplyDelete