Movies
“Devil In A Blue Dress” Has Young Denzel Carrying The Load
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) is a multi-layered crime thriller that pins a reluctant Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) amid a political and criminal conspiracy.
“A Black war hero is hired to find a mysterious woman, and gets mixed up in a murderous political scandal in 1948 Los Angeles.”
Director: Carl Franklin
Writers: Walter Mosley, Carl Franklin
Cast: Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals, Don Cheadle
Release Date: September 29, 1995
IMDB
Trying this out. Stanko shorts. 500 words. In and out, short and sweet. And no, this little prologue does not count.
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) is a multi-layered crime thriller that pins a reluctant Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) amid a political and criminal conspiracy. Set in the backdrop of late 1940s Los Angeles, Devil In A Blue Dress is based on Walter Mosley’s original novel of the same name published in 1990.
Easy, desperate for a job, smiles at the opportunity to make a quick buck finding Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) at the behest of Dewitt Albright (Tom Sizemore). The reconnaissance mission is going alright until bodies start piling up around the investigation. Easy’s antennae are up, but before he can press the eject button, Dewitt and the additional interested parties have their greedy claws stretching our everyday home-owning man in a dozen directions.
As it turns out, Daphne wasn’t missing. She is hiding. Daphne has information and proof of a scandal that’ll reshape Los Angeles’s political future. Easy calls on an old friend Mouse (Don Cheadle) and together they put the final pieces of the grizzly puzzle together, which paints a climax revealing many character’s unsightly true colors.
Washington was already on the map by 1995 with three Oscar nominations and a win for Best Supporting Actor in Glory (1990). His performance in Devil In A Blue Dress is strong, anchored by one scene where his frustration finally gets the best of him. The most interesting and crucial part of the Easy character is that he is no innocent man. He has an inscrutable quality that’s given with subtle exposition about his past, and his strange relationship with Mouse.
Devil In A Blue Dress introduces new characters with regularity, each of whom plays a part in the story’s bleak conclusion. While Washington’s performance can cover up many woes, his charisma can’t totally make up for how the story concludes. All of the dots and characters are connected, so loose ends aren’t to blame.
The pivotal moment is a shootout between Easy and Dewitt’s men, which doesn’t sit well with the rest of the style of the film. The violence in the story is kept in the shadows till the end when it’s pungently out in the open. The action is not edited all that well, and the most memorable part of the finale is Mouse explaining his reasoning for killing Joppy (Mel Winkler).
It’s a bit surprising we never got more Easy-based stories. Devil In A Blue Dress wraps itself up in a way that elicits sequels. Walter Mosley wrote 15 books centered around the character, and it says something that his first published book was made into this movie. The film was well received by both fans and critics upon its release, though it made just over 16 million dollars on a 27 million dollar budget.
As of May 2024, Devil In A Blue Dress is streaming on Netflix.
STANKO RATING: C+
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