Powder Blue (2009)

Redundant and unnecessary.

One of my all time favorites.

It is a performances centric movie

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

..... the acting is excellent. But the plot loses direction about three quarters of the way through.Four different people with four different stories. At some point I thought these individual stories would all connect somehow. Not so.What we see is a man who lost his faith in God, an ex-con who just wants to do a nice thing, a transvestite, a stripper, a puppeteer who runs a failing funeral home, and a very ill child.Two of these people eventually get together but in the process three people die and one man just seems to go off mentally.To watch this movie you have to want to see what will happen to each person but the process is slow and involved.

Multi-plot, hyper linked or mosaic films (as it is called here), whatever, I really love films like these specially when well made and with relevant things to show and tell. "Powder Blue" successfully is one of those since it has an good cast, a good story and memorable moments. Just fails a little in developing some of the moments, what can make of this film at times unbearably cheesy.Here we follow the days in the lives of an dying man (Ray Liotta) trying to connect with the daughter he never met after serving 20 years in jail; the girl (Jessica Biel) is an exotic dancer with financial problems and needs money to pay the medical bills of her comatose son; an suicide guy (Forest Whitaker) who can't cope with life anymore after his wife's death, but lacks courage to him pull the trigger and end with his life so he keeps finding someone who'll do that in exchange for money; and a young mortician (Eddie Redmayne) with lots of problems not only financial ones, almost going to bankruptcy, but also in dealing with girls. The story goes on with these characters who stumble upon each other trying to set their lives in a good way.Sure, "Powder Blue" is involving and has some relevance but it almost gets stuck in a enormous pack of predictable moments that is so obvious this character is going to meet that character that some viewers will find it a dull film. It's not dull, it just goes in ways it didn't need to go to such as the scene where Biel sexually offers herself to her son's doctor (so, so bad). Other times it almost achieves a sense of greatness with its sequences but when you have a film storage in the head like I do, you get the feeling that some elements would work in other film or they were taken from another film which doesn't make you say "It's taken from that film". Rather than that you'll say it's a copy! Example: the 1-2-3 hug scene is clearly an cheap reference to the great "Magnolia" (the kiss between Melora Walters and John C. Reilly), even the editing style is similar with the camera giving a zoom during the hug! It just lack some identity of its own.It is a beautiful picture, I loved its themes of giving second chances (or first at times) and loved the characters, all of them were interesting (Redmayne was my favorite even though the script said that the answer for his problems was to get involved with someone in similar conditions as he, with no money at all, and his change of profession wasn't all that cleared). The grandiosity of "Powder Blue" lies within these poor figures and if a movie gives, even if a small time, enough things to make you care about them, then you'll succeed it in making a film that is closer to life and relevant to it. Aside the problems it has, it's a good suggestion indeed. 8/10

It seems like in recent years many filmmakers want to depress the audience for their $20 ticket price. Powder Blue takes it one step further and tries to bore us to death at the same time.It somehow also manages to make Jessica Biel nudity boring and depressing too.The core plot lines follow a short timespan in the lives of four characters – the aforementioned single Mum/stripper Rose (Biel), a burly tatted ex-con with a secret named jack (Ray Liotta), a religious man with a death wish named Charlie (Forest Whitaker) and a waifish young mortuary owner named Qwerty… for some reason.Over the course of nearly two hours all four leads manage to inch their way towards nowhere – one paralysingly dull scene at a time. It seems for every step toward the light there are two punches in the face waiting. They even decide to throw a dying kid in the mix to cheer us up.Cameos abound with Patrick Swayze, Lisa Kudrow and Kris Kristofferson popping up to provide either momentary hope or to crush dreams – occasionally both – in an intricate series of supposedly random events that bring our four pathetic 'heroes' into each other's orbit. Things I might add that would never actually happen.Powder Blue wants to be Babel meets Storytelling meets Crash, which in my opinion is hardly lofty aspirations anyway. What results is somehow less than, but just as non-entertaining or thought provoking. In the end it's depressing meets unlikely with a solid helping of dull for good measure.Final Rating – 5 / 10. There's a reason that you haven't heard of Powder Blue, and if you have it's because Biel gets her kit off. Let me tell you that isn't near as inspirational as it should be either.

Life as we know it ... well not exactly as we know it, but then again characters and a story we can get behind. Or at least feel with the "players" (if you consider life a game that is). And while there have been quite a few movies that do use the cross time lines and different characters, that might or might not have a common goal or something else in common, this is a very nice tryout too.Just don't watch it for one scene involving Jessica Biel. If your sole purpose is to watch that scene, do not bother with the rest and fast forward to that scene and get it over with. Because you wouldn't care for the build-up and the character moments anyway. Of course they are important, but also put that scene into a perspective that some viewer might not like ...Having said that, if Drama is your cup of tea, you will watch it either way. Not "Crash", but still solid