Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Great Film overall

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The mood and atmosphere is musically enchanting and you feel like you're descending into a seedy world on the wrong side of the tracks just this side of luxury and affluence and power and politics and wise guys who know where the real money is stashed. This is a wonderful little Private Eye story about on the level of LADY IN THE LAKE with Robert Montgomery, but Easy Rawlins is here to ferret out the clues from a Black perspective. He does not come to the world of private investigation willingly, but rather has it thrust upon him due to circumstances of unemployment. He is sitting in the bar of his friend Joppy, searching through the want ads when he finds out there is a white man with a job for him.He asks none of the questions he might have with a mortgage to pay on a new house and sundry other expenses. He is simply scuffling to assimilate into the newly emerging Black Middle Class in Los Angeles. Therefore he agrees to meet with a Dewitt Albright, and agrees to search for and find a white woman who has retreated into obscurity within the Black Community. He takes his initial payment and prepares to set to work to locate Daphne Monet. The task on the face of it sounds, well, 'easy', but this is just the beginning of the story...Pretty Boy Rawlins begins to scout around and has his questions answered with questions by an associate and friend of Daphne named Coretta James. Sooner than later, Coretta winds up a stiff and Rawlins finds himself swirling to the bottom of a whole lot of trouble...Denzel Washington is spot on as Easy Rawlings, who simply wants to settle down into a middle class life with the rest of the World War II veterans, but finds his true calling as a Private Investigator. Don Cheadle nearly steals the whole show as Miles Alexander, (originally 'Mouse' in the novel) and comes across as a community icon or archetype. Most Black People will tell you every neighborhood has its 'Mouse' or 'Miles' Alexander. The little guy with a heart of gold, but who you would not leave an alley fight with alive. Don Cheadle channels this personality so well, that it is only Denzel Washington's exceptional acting ability that keeps him from being the Green Hornet to Cheadle's version of Kato.Jennifer Beals is suitably elegant and wonderful as Daphne Monet, but I could not help thinking what it would have been like to have Cassidy Rae, Julia Styles or Ali Larter play Ms. Monet, as these actresses more physically resemble the character in the novel. But she works so well in the ensemble that this is just a moot point. There is also a love scene in the novel that was left out of the film, but I suppose Easy Rawlins can't hit all the spots in Los Angeles.Like the MALTESE FALCON, the film version of DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS is actually an improvement upon the novel, and some of the reviewers here and many people in my neck of the woods would heartily welcome the further adventures of Easy Rawlins on film. This DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS could have been the DOCTOR NO to a whole series of adventures, but that was over twenty years ago now. This could have been suggested at the end of this film simply by having Easy pick up a ringing phone to hear a voice at the other end requesting his help.But there is no time like the present and it's never too late for new adventures.

Old timers say that casting is 97% of a motion picture. That's on display here - for good and bad. When the "Chimatown" moment occurs and the audience doesn't care is that the audience's fault... or the producers?devil in a blue dress. blue dress in a devil. Satan in a red dress and Lucifer in yellow. purple, orange, green and purple. kind of makes on want to blink. central avenue. avenue central. don Beadle. densely washing ton. devil in a blue dress. blue dress in a devil. Satan in a red dress and Lucifer in yellow. purple, orange, green and pink. kinda makes on want to blink. central avenue. avenue central. don Beadle. densely washing ton. devil in a blue dress. blue dress in a devil. Satan in a red dress and Lucifer in yellow. purple, orange, green and pink. kinda makes on want to blink. central avenue. avenue central. don Beadle. densely washing ton.

From the shorts to this movie I thought that it was about a Negro in the Southern United States who had been framed for the murder of a white girl and had to prove his innocence against a huge amount of discrimination. This movie is nothing of the sort. Rather it is set in Los Angeles in 1948. America faces a boom time economy, the war is over and the good times are everywhere. It is still a decade before the civil rights movement begins so Negroes are still treated as second class citizens. Everybody has a job and everybody is happy, all except a Negro named Ezekial (Denzel Washington). He is single and a World War II veteran. He moved to Los Angeles from Texas and has bought himself a house in the expanding suburbs in what will probably become South Central Los Angeles in the 1990's. He worked overtime and because of that was fired and now he is looking for a job. A friend who owns a bar hooks him up with somebody who wants a young lady found. This lady was the girlfriend of a rich Los Angeles businessman who is running for mayor and he wants her.What this movie turns out to be is a detective story. It seems to be a revisitation of the old 1940's and 1950's detective films such as the Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. The major difference is that this is not as dark as these other movies. Devil in a Blue Dress does portray a rather darker side to this era though. The 50's is generally considered to be a time when everything was good and politicians could be trusted. Movies such as this and L.A. Confidential appear and undermine the glamour of this era. In this movie we see corrupt politicians, racist cops, infidelity, child molestation. and severe segregation.There are a number of small themes in this movie, though the major one seems to be the removal of the façade that the 50's erected around itself. Ezekial was the subject of racist rebuke when the police try to pin the murder of a white man on him, and there is the issue of him being sacked for working overtime while a white man who does that is rewarded. Devil in a Blue Dress takes the 50's and destroys its credibility. It shows a suburb that one day will become a crime ridden slum. It can't be helped seeing South Central Los Angeles in this suburban paradise in the 50's. Such things are portrayed in other movies to, such as Back to the Future where the dream suburb becomes a haven of crime in the future.This is a movie that does not create the façade of a great America that has reached the pinnacle of civilisation. Rather it creates an America that is showing signs of decay even in its finest hour.

"You step out of your door in the morning and you're already in trouble. The only question is: are you on top of that trouble or not?" - Easy Rawlins "Devil In A Blue Dress" wants to be the African American "Chinatown", and director Carl Franklin comes close. All the noir ingredients are here - a gumshoe with a cool name (Easy Rawlins, played by Denzel Washington), moody cinematography, an LA location, a missing woman, femme fatales, a last act revelation, the genre's usual assortment of crooks, conflicts, seedy joints and crooked cops etc – but Franklin isn't strong enough a stylist to make his noir landscape come alive, isn't skilled enough a director to maintain the tension and isn't deep enough an artist to handle anything more than themes of racism and prejudice, though his film does address the white-centric view of 1940s LA which most noirs erroneously put forth.7.9/10 – This film would play better with stronger dialogue. As it is, it has no contemporary relevance or connection and exists only to satisfy a certain "noir nostalgia". Still, like De Niro's "True Confessions", this is a worthy second tier neo-noir. Makes a good companion piece to "Mulholland Falls", "Hollywoodland", "LA Confidential" and "Lonelyhearts", four other "not quiet successful" modern neo noirs set in the 1940s.Worth one viewing.