Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

One thing I have often asked myself while watching film noirs is why aren't there any black people? The cool black person should have played well with the white audiences, even back in those incredibly racist '40's. Maybe not as the lead, but having more black characters would have lent itself to the noir style.

Devil in a Blue Dress however, is so similar to the way a "black guy" noir would have played that I can see why they weren't made. Maybe the message about racism wouldn't have been as heavy-handed as it was in this 1990's film, but no doubt it would have been there. It isn't that message which I disliked, it was more the way it was presented.

Devil in a Blue Dress is set in 1948 L.A., and follows the honest, hard-working black man who is dumped on by the whites, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins (Denzel Washington, in a role which he so often plays). Out of luck, and employment, he takes a job from a detective DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore), who originally says he is employed by mayoral candidate Todd Carter (Terry Kinney), but turns out to be far more sinister. He is employed to find the mayoral candidate's former lover, Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) who happens to sympathise and hang out with black people at illegal nightclubs.

Easy then tracks down a friend of hers, Coretta James (Lisa Nicole Carson), at an illegal black nightclub. He goes to her house and sleeps with her, while finding out a fake address for Daphne. Coretta turns out to be dead the next morning, putting detectives Mason and Miller (John Roselius and Beau Starr) on his tail. To help him find and help Daphne once he realises who DeWitt really is (a criminal), He brings in gun-toting badass Mouse Alexander (Don Cheadle) to help him find her.

The movie oozes with class and style. The cinematography is very impressive, and more than suitably in the style, even though it is in colour. The music is suitable, with a very nice rendition of "'Round Midnight" during a montage as well as a generally jazzy score. Denzel Washington has the sound of a typical gumshoe down, and the voice-over is also quite good. Don Cheadle is electrifying as Mouse Alexander, and Sizemore is menacing as well.

The issue is the predictable story. Most neo-noirs try to get a story which is original and fresh, and put it over the classic noir backdrop. This story is quite uninspired by those standards, and by regular noir standards. The plot is twisty, but the resolution only really serves to hammer in the hammy message of tolerance. The message is poorly handled throughout acutally, with some clumsy scenes thrown in there to try to ingratiate the viewer with the plight of the blacks in the '40's. The third act drags a little as well.

Overall it is pretty good neo-noir, oozing with style as well as giving viewers the first noirish black lead since Shaft, though Shaft is a blacksploitation flick. The story is predictable, but most noir stories are. In the end it is very solid, but it lacks the skill of neo-noirs like "Chinatown", "Blue Velvet" and "L.A. Confidential."

3.5/5, good but could have been better without such a heavy-handed message obscuring the already thin plot.