Devil in a Blue Dress (1995, Carl Franklin) (Patreon)

65/100

Second viewing, last seen during its original theatrical release. Having created my website just two months earlier (with no expectation that it would become a lifelong career), I actually wrote a very cursory review at the time:

Nothing much to shout about, but still a fine and entertaining murder mystery featuring terrific performances from Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, and (especially) Don Cheadle as Mouse. A lot of critics seem to be excited by the film's racial subtext, but I thought the film paid too little attention to such details throughout most of its running time, and then too much (and too blatant) attention in the final reel. (Contrast the way that Chinatown, to which Devil in a Blue Dress is indebted in several respects, incorporates its themes from the get-go.) Tak Fujimoto's cinematography is stunning, as ever.

Can't say I disagree with Younger Me after finally taking another look. Until Cheadle shows up to dole out arrestingly casual psychopathy (which happens much later than I'd remembered, with only about 40 minutes left to go), there's something a tad muted about this film, despite its deft transposition of sunny L.A. noir to an African-American milieu. Not having read any Mosley, I'm in a poor position to blame him, but the narrative itself feels slightly undernourished; note, for example, that I omitted Jennifer Beals from my list of Devil in a Blue Dress' best performances—not because she's bad, by any means, but simply because her title character's barely in the movie. While Easy has to defend himself against viciously racist gangsters and political skullduggery, he never seems in any real danger of becoming too emotionally involved with the case, even though that's clearly what's meant to fuel the movie's motor. Granted, this amounts to an origin story of sorts (setting up sequels that were never made), and Easy doesn't yet perceive himself as being "on a case," as opposed to securing some ready cash without getting himself killed in the process. But a dramatic core of anguish and intensity nonetheless strikes me as inconspicuously absent. I'd even go so far as to suggest that Easy appears incomplete without Mouse, as if the latter were a manifestation of the former's throttled id. That's a fascinating idea, now that it suddenly occurs to me...but is it really in the movie? Maybe it is. I might be talking myself into a new perspective here. (That'd also add a robust additional layer to Mouse's classic line "Easy, look, if you ain't want him killed, why'd you leave him with me?") 

In any case, Devil in a Blue Dress doesn't require any tortured justifications to be thoroughly enjoyed. Washington was at his charismatic peak here, even successfully pulling off a pencil mustache; at the same time, he largely suppresses his cocky grin and swagger, creating a portrait of someone who's loath to risk losing his hard-won self-sufficiency but keeps feeling the tug of curiosity and compassion. It's gratifyingly subdued work, clearing space for Cheadle—then almost completely unknown; I'd apparently previously seen him play a small role in Dennis Hopper's Colors, but that's it—to steal act three in the most relaxed way imaginable. One of those electrifying near-debuts that inform your perception of the actor forever after. I still do wish that Franklin (who also wrote the screenplay) had found a way to seed thematic hints of Daphne's climactic revelation into the soil of earlier scenes, given her physical absence during most of them...but the sting itself remains, and that's not nothing.