So they finally made a big screen movie about the ’92 riots. Sort of. “Dark Blue” is set during the time leading up to the Simi Valley verdicts but is not about the Rodney King case. It’s about another set of cops who more resemble the Rampart guys. Remember that scandal?
Our main guy is named Eldon Perry and he’s a part of one of those secret, “frame ‘em if you have too, but just get ‘em” units of the LAPD. Eldon is played by Kurt Russell. His new partner is a young guy named Bobby. We open up with Bobby being questioned over a shooting. These guys get questioned over a lot of shootings. Eldon is the lead wise guy and spouts so much ugly racist stuff in the first few minutes you are immediately aware he has no concept anymore as to who are the bad guys and who are the citizens who just happen to be in the way.
Now I know guys like Eldon exist in many big city police departments, it’s just that this movie uses the sledgehammer approach and makes his character so clear, so quickly, that he’s a big turn off. And, of course, you just know poor new guy Bobby is in for it. The other no good cop is their boss, Jack Van Meter, who looks so much like an evil white guy I didn’t need to hear his Irish accent coming through to figure him out. As added ambience, these guys constantly drink. Even a judge downs a martini after signing a phony warrant. Hey,it’s pretty stressful covering your tracks all the time.
Eldon also has a bad marriage and young Bobby is dating a black cop who just happens to work for the story’s main good guy, an Assistant Chief played by Ving Rhames. However while that may seem a complicated set-up, this isn’t a very complicated movie.
In fact, all you need to know is that just about all the white cops are crooked and immoral (and drink alot) and all the black cops are out to set things right. That doesn’t bother me – it’s common belief, at least in Hollywood, that the Chief Parkers’ and the Chief Davis’ and the Chief Gates’ cops caused all the “civil unrest” episodes. I understand that in the movies you really do have to make it very clear to the audience just who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. So, in “Dark Blue”, just know the white guys who drink too much have to go down.
If you hang in there, the riots of ’92 do show up and they complicate things for Eldon in this long and sad morality tale. The ending is too melodramatic but it almost saved the movie which is awash in silly stereotypes. I give “Dark Blue” a 4.0 on the scale.
