Big City Blues

The film follows three storylines and the Reynolds/Forsythe storyline is *very* derivative of Pulp Fiction (2 gangland thugs make the rounds for their boss and cross paths with wacky people). If you turned up for a Burt Reynolds film, you are likely in the wrong headspace. This is a quirky indie 90s flick done when Reynolds was trying to get a career comeback like Travolta's. He would hit with his other film that year, Boogie Nights. The other two threads are the gold in this film. Giancarlo Esposito and Arye Gross are transgender women out on a night on the town. Gross tells a series of parables to help Esposito decide if she wants to go through with a sex change. The humour and wacky of the film is in Gross' stories including a surprising scene featuring pvc frog costumes. The heart of the film is Georgina Cates, a call girl with a heart of gold. I feel like her's is the key story and the others are to draw you in first. Cates is seeking her doppleganger, the person who is exactly like her but made better choices. Along the way, we get some very memorable scenes with her clients. I found this on Tubi for free and it was a bargain at twice the price.

Big City Blues is young, hip & stylish! A very entertaining movie. If you liked Pulp Fiction, you will love Big City Blues! Clive Fleury is positively clever and definetly the next Quentin Tarantino! Brilliantly and artistically filmed - The movie shows us the hidden underworld of prostitutes, drag queens, and hit men and how all their lives come together in a very REAL way! I would tell you more about it but I don't want to spoil it for you, but the scene with the dancing human frogs was beyond visually stimulating...

A MUST SEE!

This film describes the experiences of a couple of hit men (one of them Burt Reynolds), a prostitute, and two drag queens over the interval of a few hours on one night in Miami. The convergent storylines eventually bring all the people together at one place and time. The movie was mildly entertaining, but the big problem was that everything happens at night and many scenes were literally under-exposed to the point that it was impossible to see what was happening. In a few scenes you can actually see where they tried to "stretch" the developing process to save the images. Somebody didn't know how to operate a movie camera. Amazing that this film was even released!

I bought this DVD for $5.99... A Big Mac meal would have been more satisfying, and I'd have change coming. Much too dark... Although the trailer on the DVD looked like it was timed right. For some reason, and it seems to be a recurring theme here in the comments section, 80% of this movie is almost black. The story was a Pulp Fiction-esque wanna be, missing that all important "story" element. These characters are flat and manufactured with no real goal. Or if they had a goal, it wasn't shared with the audience. The tie in at the end was too "hand of god." I know that movies need convenience as a device, but this was just too coincidental. Not that these characters were destined to come together, but the scene that was written solely for the purpose of coming together. "Hey, look at me, I'm Tarantino!" says the director. "No, you're not," says the box office.

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.