FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Predrag A voluptuously seedy tale of blackmail, murder and double-cross, "Devil in a Blue Dress" captures splendidly the mood of the forties, and is a worthy modern equivalent to old gems such as "Double Indemnity", "The Blue Dahlia" and "The Big Sleep".It's summer in Los Angeles, 1948. Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins (Denzel Washington) returned from World War II a few years ago to a land of opportunity. He got a job, a mortgage and a home of his own. But now he has lost his job and is determined not to lose his house. A friend introduces Easy to a sleazy character named DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore) who ostensibly is trying to locate the former girlfriend of mayoral candidate Tom Carter (Terry Kinney) so that the couple may be reunited. Desperate to keep making his mortgage payments, Easy accepts the job of finding the girlfriend, a woman named Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals). His search causes him to be suspect in several murders and arouses the interest of the rival candidate for mayor, Matthew Teran (Maury Chaykin). Easy finds that he is not the only person looking for Daphne Monet and that no one is exactly who he, or she, appears to be. There's strong acting by all the members of the cast. Washington brings his typical integrity and likability to Easy, and Don Cheadle almost steals the show. Mouse is quick to kill, basically a psycho, but a great friend to have. Also noteworthy is Tom Sizemore as a ruthless, cold-blooded bad guy and Jennifer Beals is alluring as the mysterious "Daphne Monet." Regardless, this is a fascinating movie that just oozes with the 1940's atmosphere. Great narration in there, a la film noir, great automobiles and great sets. It puts you right into the late 40's in Los Angeles, a little bit like the film Chinatown.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Thomas Lingeman Devil in a Blue Dress definitely had a large LA Noir feel to it; I got this vibe because of the general outfits of the characters and the set design. The cars all seemed to be the same. So did many of the outfits the characters were wearing. Finally, they seemed to both share the types of tools; guns, gadgets, etc. Of course this character was alike to that of Jack Gittes in Chinatown. The biggest comparison being they are both detectives who get caught up in a more serious crime dilemma than what was originally expected. Also, they are both on the search for the dame in distress, who turns out to be a very provocative and compelling character. The movies are also the same in the way they are through the narration of the main character. Also, they both tend to get beat up by some hired goons! Devil in a New Dress had a mixed drama to it. It used tomes of a typical thriller we would see in today's films. There was not as much down time as there was in Chinatown. So even though this movie set in the past and had a lot of characters who fit that part, it still had a new movie feel to it Yes, I do believe the story changes because the main character is black. For this movie they tried to show a lot of the darker elements behind racism towards blacks for that time period. It did not take away from the story, but at times it did feel forced. It felt like it was an adversity that he never truly climbed away from. This is the opposite for the movie Chinatown. It mainly focused on the racism towards Asians at that time period, but was less subtly. Such as; the differences in the way they pronounce words. The films would be greatly different if they were set in the present day. I would not get that special feel if it was not taken place in the 40's. Plus I cannot picture a detective, in this day in age, doing the things Jack Gittes and Easy Rawlins. Especially going after a dame in distress.

secondtake Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)I wanted to like this movie. A good friend pressed it forward as a belated view of the black noir experience, and there was such truth that the urban black world hadn't seen any attention in the classic noir days (post-War) I had to watch it.But this is more belated than anything. It's loaded with clichés without really moving them anywhere new (and a stale cliché is really deadening). The director AND screenwriter, Carl Franklin, is relatively untested—he's done a bunch of t.v. stuff, an African-American with talent as an a actor but a little stretched here, I think. The star does his best to hold it together, none other than Denzel Washington, but in fact even he is following old patterns a bit listlessly. This is really clear when a truly brilliant actor arrives on the scene—Don Cheadle—and in his moments there is finally a rising up and synthesis of intentions.The plot is almost a given—a detective on the outs faces a terrible crime, and a mysterious woman (call her a femme fatale if you want, but she's too plastic to work for me). He is hounded by a white man (or two) with truly dubious or evil intentions that he can't quite decipher. Until it really gets out of his control. The book is here is by the much lauded author Walter Mosley, and I only discovered this today (I saw them movie innocently). And I've read one or two things by Mosley and actually found the same problem as the movie: lots of tropes and worn out problems approached in the same old way. Except with black characters.Now this may be naive, but I think in fact the world of urban Blacks and their crime worlds in mid-Century America is really really ripe for some serious fictional writing. Something without myth making. There must be a black Bogart or Mitchum type out there for those inclined. There's another problem, though, looking back and wishing we had better movies about certain things than we did. Maybe that's just the way it was, and we need new movies about new things, not re-hashed themes that only half make up for what might have been. Or not. We weren't there, and we never can be.So all good intentions aside, give this movie a skeptical look. It's well enough made and has some tightly made moments, but as a whole it flounders and lacks one of the basics—originality.

PopCulturedwithMovieMike I'm not sure why I had never heard of this film before. Thanks to Netflix for recommending it to me. I really enjoyed it. Devil in a Blue Dress stars Denzel Washington as "Easy" Rawlins, a hard working man trying to achieve the American dream in the 40's. Easy is asked to track down a missing woman and soon finds himself tangled in a murder mystery. Devil in a Blue Dress plays out like a noir film. It's equipped with a voice over by Washington as well as dames with long legs (Jennifer Beals.) Denzel gives his normal amazing performance, but he's overshadowed by Don Cheadle, who plays Easy's homicidal homie. Cheadle is so volatile you feel like he can explode at any moment. There are some strong themes of race and what it was like living as a black person in a post-war America. If you're a fan of some of the actors in the film or a fan of the genre, I would highly recommend Devil in a Blue Dress.