Walter Moseley’s story is smart and not overly complicated. It’s the stomping ground of both gangsters and wage-earning locals, and Easy Rawlins calls it home. Dance clubs and jazz haunts abound, and illegal gambling can be found in an upstairs room over a drugstore. It begins by inviting the audience into the black section of postwar L.A., nighttime streets crowded with shiny cars and well-dressed pedestrians. Like the bigger success Philadelphia it offers star Denzel Washington a worthy leading role, the kind that black actors seldom received. The show was executive-produced by the makers of The Silence of the Lambs. Director Franklin brings the taste and talent that creates a feeling of ‘being there’ without overstating the period trimmings. Denzel Washington is terrific in an excellent rendering of Los Angeles in 1948, where South Central is the home neighborhood and blacks are discouraged from drifting into the West Side. Was it bad timing or what - how could a movie this good not catch on? Carl Franklin was cheated, Easy Rawlins was cheated and WE were cheated: the 1995 feature film Devil in a Blue Dress, adapted from the first of Walter Mosley’s detective novels, should have been the first chapter in an ongoing series. Starring: Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals, Don Cheadle, Maury Chaykin, Terry Kinney, Lisa Nicole Carson, Albert Hall, Mel Winkler. available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date J/ 39.95
It’s one of Washington’s best pictures, and should have initiated an entire franchise of Walter Mosley / Easy Rawlins detective adventures.ġ995 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. Everybody’s good and Don Cheadle’s loose-cannon henchman ‘Mouse’ is terrific. There’s plenty to enjoy in this hard/soft-boiled tale, starting with the great music. Denzel Washington’s star quality and acting prowess shine in the smart production, with Tak Fujimoto cinematography that put the color back into ’90s filmmaking. After bouncing about in a couple of good Blu-ray editions, Carl Franklin’s superior film adaptation of the great Walter Mosley novel makes the jump to 4K.
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