A Face Oculta da Lei

About halfway through this movie, I realized I hadn't blinked once. That's when I knew that I was watching a really good film. Kurt Russell is no slouch of an actor. He was riveting. This was a well crafted cop flick where everyone seems to have dirt on someone else, and meanwhile, there are crimes being committed, and L.A. is about to erupt in rioting.

The great thing about this flick is that it doesn't try to be more than it is. Which is just a very entertaining, suspenseful cop movie.

Well worth a watch.

Or two.

DARK BLUE (2003) ***1/2 Kurt Russell, Scott Speedman, Ving Rhames, Michael Michele, Lola Davidovich, Brendan Gleeson, Jonathan Banks. Russell gives the performance of his career as morally corrupt LA cop Eldin Perry, assigned to a special forces unit, who uses his power to put the screws to the animals he patrols by any means necessary , instructing his rookie partner Speedman , until things come to a bloody head in the shadow of the Rodney King trial. Rhames as the deputy chief of police determined to bring Perry down provides the missing social backbone to this insightfully gritty look at bad cops gone wild. Filmmaker Ron Shelton affectively uses the historic time setting perfectly in capturing the tempest in a teacup that acts as a perfect metaphor for the screenplay written by David Ayer based on James Ellroy's story.

1st watched 8/21/2003 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Ron Shelton): Well done good cop/bad cop movie that works because the good & the bad are basically caught in the same trap and some of the characters change from one to the other during the film. Kurt Russell's character is one of them that changes. He is bad with a capital `B' in the beginning. He's foul-mouthed, racist and doesn't care much for justice but wants to cover the good guys' behind whenever possible. He is totally believable as this redneck character. His partner is being taught to lie in what they call a `shooting trial' where they question the cop on a convict-shooting to make sure it was the `only' option. The setting for the film is a few days before the `non-guilty' Rodney King verdict in L.A., but this is only a backdrop to the movie's story. There is typical corruption in the police ranks but in this one, the star is involved in the corruption. Without giving away too much of the story, basically the cops are involved in another shooting and the partner decides to tell the truth which leads to other events that bring about the much-hoped-for ending. It's neat the way the filmmaker uses the Rodney King fiasco to blend in with the action of the story which kind of adds a separate element that everyone is quietly following as they do their jobs. The acting, the direction and the story blend together for a very satisfying and watchable movie despite the typical bad cop/good cop genre that the story is based on. Hooray for all involved on this one!!

As the trial of the officers accused of beating Rodney King occurs in the background, LA sits on a knife's edge of tension. Meanwhile hard-line cop Eldon Perry celebrates his partner being cleared of operating outside of procedure and the pair go back to work. When they are put on a robbery homicide case all the evidence points to a couple of informants used by Captain Jack Van Meter, however he assures them it wasn't them and tells them to find someone else to pin it on. However Perry's partner Bobby Keough has a change of heart and the cracks start to show as LA bursts into flames.

This film was slightly over-hyped when it came out. I agree that it is a solid cop thriller that rises above recent offerings from the genre but to give it as much praise as it garnered at the time is to give it more than it deserves. The basic plot is on two levels. On the first level the film is about police corruption and sees a corrupt house of cards teetering on the brink of collapse. This bit works well and the cop thriller element works well even if it treads familiar ground. The second level is the background of the Rodney King trial and the LA riots. This aspect is very much wallpaper and I didn't really feel it was necessary for the main narrative to work. At best it complimented the ongoing tensions between community and cops, at worst it distracts from the main thrust.

Russell does give one of his strongest performances in recent years and is not afraid to be an unsympathetic lead character. However the rest of the cast are either not as good or not as well used. Speedman has to carry most of the moral weight of the film and it is clearly too heavy for him and can't do it convincingly. Rhames is simply not used very well and is almost supplementary to requirements. Gleeson is miscast - he is an able actor but the film required him to be a generation older than Perry, in reality they were the same age more or less. Michele is sexy and is reasonably well used for a support character and Kurupt is good even if he is playing the character that he plays daily in his rapper personae.

Overall this was a superior cop thriller that was enjoyable as same. It did a reasonable job looking at the real life issues of corruption in the LAPD but not as well as perhaps other reviews would have led you to believe - it is more a wallpaper or just a theme that is used to prop up the narrative rather than a real good historic look at the time.

Kurt Russel and Scott Speedman star in this this thriller about an elderly cop, named Eldon (Russel) who is corrupt, yet thinks what he does is for the greater good. His younger partner, named Bobby(Speedman) is new on the force, and he's taking on his partners way of being a cop. While Eldon and Bobby are out doing their 'thing', a robbery occurs. Several people are left dead, and its up to Eldon and Bobby to solve the case, in their own way.

The story goes on from there, and takes several unexpected turns, and proves to be highly entertaining, just like the rest of the movie. Kurt Russel's acting is top-notch, but unfortunetly Scott Speedman doesn't really deliver a very striking performance. But other than Speedman's lacking acting skills, the movie is very good. The story keeps you on the edge of your seat, and there are several subplots that all come together in the end, giving us an ending which leaves us all satisfied.

Now, this is definetly not an action movie. Instead it relies on its story and the characters, and that's a very good move by the director. But there are still moments where we are in awe of the movie, such as the riot scenes. Scenes of absolute anarchy.

All in all, a very good movie. Recommended to all who wants a good story to sit back and enjoy. 8/10