Points de rupture

I rented this movie although many people crucified this movie as being a Crash sequel or just a blurred copy of The Air I Breathe.. Being a great fan of the existential dramas, where destinies cross each other only to emphasize the true value of life and most important the heart mending result of doing something right, (even it is too late) i decided to watch this movie in hope of seeing something equally thrilling to Crash. In fact, Powder Blue has some similarities to Crash or The Air I Breathe, but director Tim Bui manages to underline the most important idea of human destiny: the miracle. Here we see the miracle of destiny that incorporates the miracle of love (Rose and Qwerty), the miracle of divine intervention and hope (Charlie and the trans gender prostitute) and the miracle of sacrifice. (Jack for his daughter Rose)

In conclusion this movie is not to be compared to Crash, even it is based on the same destinies-cross-each other-structure. And of course the soundtrack which is surprisingly good, with featured artists like Bliss or Imogen Heap.

I recommend this movie 8,5/10

"Powder Blue" wasn't one of those big cinema releases, yet it was a film with a gripping powerful story of the intersecting of complex paths in the city of L.A.. And the all star cast made the film watchable. Set in modern day L.A. on the tough and rumble streets the films main focus is on four characters and it involves the showing of their everyday hardships and problems only all will collide by luck, destiny, and happens chance. Jessica Biel who's always beautiful and such a pleasure to view really shines as a young desperate single mom with a dying kid who's only hope is to earn money to support her cocaine habit by doing nude dancing as a stripper. Enter Ray Liotta as an ex con just released yet he has terminal cancer only he will discover thru Biel's character that life finally does have some touching emotional moments. And Forrest Whitaker is a character you feel desperate for as he is a man with no will to live after losing his wife as he will go to any lengths to be killed. And to round out you have a young mortician played by Eddie Redmayne who's lonely only in the end destiny will have it he will find love with the Biel character. This film is pretty powerful for it's message it sends that no matter how desperate life is for some unexpected hope can be found and everyone has a destiny. Plus no matter how different and complex people are they are all the same as their paths were meant to cross to help one another as in the end that leads to a heavenly and peaceful ending. Overall great film with an all star cast that proves life is a harsh struggle yet with help and connecting their is hope.

On paper one wonders "how can a film with such a powerful cast not receive a theatrical release?". Before becoming paranoid or just lamenting the boneheadedness of today's ignorant Hollywood moguls, the answer is simple: the finished product is a disaster.

Anyone who's regularly attended industry screenings, especially organized film markets like AFM, Mifed or the old IFFM in NYC, knows that acquisition reps and distributors take a tough look at films on spec. This isn't a major studio production, or a Weinstein Brothers film, but yet another of the literally thousands of indies cranked out because money was flowing freely -this was produced in 2007, before the financial world went into turmoil and borrowing money for anything (let alone as risky a prospect as making a movie) seized up entirely.

I let my Netflix fingers do the walking, and painlessly rented this one last week, but it was a chore and a half getting through to the bitter end. The young filmmaker in charge has concocted a very poor script, one that would never have been green lighted by a major studio or even a mini-major -even if the studio mogul was demented enough to order his underlings to "GET ME A 'CRASH', after that Paul Haggis special made such a big splash at the Oscars. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Kieslowski fan -I've seen all his feature films and even some of his short films & TV work shown in local retrospectives, but his own investigations of how chance/coincidence/fate rules the lives of FICTIONAL characters fail to justify the dozens of crappy Chaos Theory movies being made. Obviously many scatterbrained film festival directors and programmers eat up this stuff, but I find nearly all of the recent efforts in this non-genre to be examples of poor writing. And that includes the aptly titled but way overrated BABEL, or the more obvious forerunner to this project, the unbearably contrived 11:14 (which, surprise, surprise, also failed to get a theatrical release in the U.S.).

It's obvious why good actors work for scale in junk like this -they have the prospect of juicy roles (regardless of the absence of a viable structure from which those roles can hang), the half-assed inverted prestige of "going indie", and above all else can relish the opportunity of chewing the scenery for an untested, timid director - you know, the famous Klaus Kinski syndrome -he always preferred to work for hacks rather than geniuses like Leone and Herzog, because he could trample all over them.

Case in point: in Powder Blue we have a lapsed priest played by Forest, obviously aware that you don't have to give back Oscar statuettes based on subsequent poor efforts. His attempts at getting folks to kill him are so preposterously and awkwardly written and staged by our writer/director here that the film basically self-destructs in the first couple of reels.

The connectors between the characters and movie references are lame in the extreme -not worthy of a '60s sexploitation film by Michael Findlay or Doris Wishman (I'm being mean on purpose, but let's face it, this auteur is NOT as advanced in his plot development as say a Russ Meyer or Joe Sarno). The guy watching the stripper turns out to be her long-lost father; the hooker's dog is found by her nerd in shining armor, the creepy young funeral director; Jessica's anecdote quoting ANNIE HALL; the sudden, highly symbolic snowfall helps connect beautiful romanticism to the corny frieze (pun intended) of Liotta's corpse in the snow, giving way to a "Six People You'll Meet in Heaven" beach scene of grandpa stiff and grandson stiff cavorting in what looks like a lift from the idiotic finale of Jodie Foster on the beach with daddy David Morse in CONTACT; Swayze's real-life brother Don popping up as the bouncer in Patrick's strip joint; the heartfelt through-the-glass, phones at ears scene of Biel & Liotta is a remake of an infinitely better Nastassja Kinski scene in Wenders' classic Paris, Texas; the Eddie/Biel "Let's Hug" scene that is straight out of an acting class exercise; and a "Two Tickets to Paris" finale in which Biel's last line is barely audible, etc., etc. Flunk this guy out of screen writing class already.

Yes, the indigestible collection of scenes immortalized in the final cut, for DVD, of POWDER BLUE is just the sort of thing folks shake their heads at when attending film markets. I was always astounded back in the day (about 25 years back) at people who would duck in out of the salles at the Cannes Market or Mifed, watching a reel or two of a film, and then rushing to check out the other films screening simultaneously in nearby theaters. As a film buff I was inculcated with watching films in their entirety -even in the later ages of VHS and DVD I adhere to this policy, not checking out excerpts or jumping to future "chapters". But when you see a film as badly constructed as Powder Blue you can understand why the hard-headed mercenaries of this industry think they can tell early on whether a film is headed nowhere. It's unfair, since even a terrible film is presumably eligible for "redemption" in its final reels, but I'm beginning to see the logic in such impatient behavior.

'Powder Blue' tries hard to be effective but for the most part it falls flat. The film is about four isolated lives which at some point during the movie, connect with one another. Yet, the stories are half-baked and theatrical and the characters actions hardly make sense. Moreover they're loaded with cheesy dialogues that are poorly delivered. The characters beg the viewer's sympathy but I found myself caring less for what happens to them. 'Powder Blue' tries to be like 'Magnolia' and it grossly fails to reach anywhere near the superiority of that movie. Forest Whitaker appears too whiny. His best scenes are those with Kudrow. Ray Liotta perhaps has the best role and he does a fine job here. Jessica Biel has her moments of good acting and abysmal acting but she proves to be a very good dancer. Eddie Redmayne looks confused most of the time. There are small appearances by Lisa Kudrow, Kris Kristopherson, Riki Lindhome, and Patrick Swayze but their characters lack development. Swayze is barely recognizable and he successfully provides comic relief. Lisa Kudrow delivers the most natural performance as she stands out in a small role (in my opinion, a role too small to do justice to her immense talent). I liked how the film was executed, mostly under a cold colour tone reflecting the gloominess of the atmosphere and the cold Christmas weather. The use of digital camera also gives the film a raw look that adds to the scenes. 'Powder Blue' is not among the worst films but it seriously needed rewriting because now it is almost very much a half-baked and insipid soap opera

It's the Christmas season in L.A. Rose Johnny (Jessica Biel) is a drug-addicted stripper at Velvet Larry (Patrick Swayze)'s sleazy strip club with a coma kid in the hospital. Her dog escapes from her motel room and gets run over by shy mortician Qwerty Doolittle (Eddie Redmayne). Jack Doheny (Ray Liotta) is just released after 25 years in prison. His former boss Randall (Kris Kristofferson) gives him a suitcase full of money and directions to Rose Johnny. Charlie (Forest Whitaker) is a suicidally depressed ex-priest. He picks up transsexual prostitute Lexus (Alejandro Romero) and offers her his life savings of $50k to kill him with his gun. Doolittle is struggling for money and Charlie shows up offering the same deal. Waitress Sally (Lisa Kudrow) tries to show Charlie some kindness.

These characters are all lost. There is an emptiness in these characters and quite frankly in this movie. The actors try their best but filmmaker Timothy Linh Bui can't really pull it all together. The scattered nature of the narrative diffuses any tension. It just fails to maintain my interest in these people. Somewhere in the first half, it needs to reveal the connections and the backstories.