Big City Blues (1997)
Two hit men, a call girl, and a gay couple become entangled in a web of violence. In the course of one night, they just narrowly miss each other.
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Why so much hype?
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Big City Blues was a failed experiment of a film that would later be repeated successfully in films like Boogie Nights and Crash. It's the story of five characters, two hit men, two drag queens and a prostitute who meet up in a deserted Miami mansion one fateful night.The drag queens Giancarlo Esposito and Arye Gross are the most interesting of the quintet. Especially Esposito who is in a journey of transitioning, but not quite sure if she wants to complete the change. The names in the cast are the hit men, Burt Reynolds and William Forsythe who do their best, but are defeated by a lousy script and poor direction. I can see Reynolds was cast here as he was in Boogie Nights, but in that film there was a cohesion as all the participants were involved in the pornography industry and were all interesting characters. Georgina Cates is the prostitute and she's along for the ride, also defeated by poor direction. Her character as a hooker who aspires for something more could have been a lot better.Crash is a film along the same lines and it was a Best Picture Oscar winner. Would this have turned out as well.
"Big City Blues" is terrible. The main problem is the lighting. You can't see anything. I mean it. The whole movie looks like it was shot in absolute darkness.How can they release this on video? Besides the lighting, everything else is wretched. From what I could see of Reynolds and Forsythe, they couldn't care less. I think the plot was about two hit men and their targets. The idea of a "Pulp Fiction" with Burt Reynolds is interesting, but this mess can only hurt him. Thankfully, not a lot of people will see this.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com
If you liked watching Mel Gibson in Million Dollar Hotel then you might enjoy watching Burt Reynolds in yet another film so bad it could never be distributed. I can only attest to the DVD version so maybe the VHS version is better quality wise but the movies night and dark scenes have been so poorly done that everythings seems red. I first thought my DVD players was messed up. It wasn't. If you insist on watching it I recommend you adjust the color on your TV until it is black and white. If you don't you will never be able to get through the film. If you do it will simply remind you of a poor film students attempt to revist the style of Pulp Fiction.
When I saw the cast of an interesting sound of title I thought it's gonna worth, but the film got a one Big-Blues Problem ... a director. Usually when story is written and directed by one person, film is going to be good, but in this particular example, this law doesn't work. I mean this could be a good film, well but it wasn't ... Big City Blues got some funny scenes, good (as usually) acting by Giancarlo Esposito, and nothing more.