Those that complain that Philip Glass's scores are obtrusive, should watch Dark Blue. The music, a cross between porn music and bad sitcom music, ruins many scenes, making it difficult to get into what is otherwise a decent, sometimes brilliant, script. If you're going to spend all this money on a cast (Kurt Russell, Ving Rhames, Lolita Davidovich, Micheal Michele, Brendan Gleeson, Scott Speedman) and recreating Los Angles after the Rodney King riots, why hire such a hack? If the sound in a movie is supposed to create 30% of the emotional intensity, it seems silly to go through all the energy of producing a movie, when the highest score you can obtain with a bad score is 70%. The fact that it gets the 70% is a tribute to some fine performances and a fine job of capturing L.A. Collateral did a better job of capturing the city at night, but Dark Blue does a nice job of capturing it in the day. There are many imperfections here, especially the big speech Russell gives at the end, but the interesting ways things tie together overcomes them. Particularly impressive is Speedman, who plays the role Ethan Hawke played in Training Day. Maybe my expectations of his work were low and maybe working with Russell inspired him, but he turns in some nice work as the ethically challenged new guy. Maybe they should have hired him to do the soundtrack.
Review of Dark Blue
