Powder Blue

On paper one wonders "how can a film with such a powerful cast not receive a theatrical release?". Before becoming paranoid or just lamenting the boneheadedness of today's ignorant Hollywood moguls, the answer is simple: the finished product is a disaster.

Anyone who's regularly attended industry screenings, especially organized film markets like AFM, Mifed or the old IFFM in NYC, knows that acquisition reps and distributors take a tough look at films on spec. This isn't a major studio production, or a Weinstein Brothers film, but yet another of the literally thousands of indies cranked out because money was flowing freely -this was produced in 2007, before the financial world went into turmoil and borrowing money for anything (let alone as risky a prospect as making a movie) seized up entirely.

I let my Netflix fingers do the walking, and painlessly rented this one last week, but it was a chore and a half getting through to the bitter end. The young filmmaker in charge has concocted a very poor script, one that would never have been green lighted by a major studio or even a mini-major -even if the studio mogul was demented enough to order his underlings to "GET ME A 'CRASH', after that Paul Haggis special made such a big splash at the Oscars. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Kieslowski fan -I've seen all his feature films and even some of his short films & TV work shown in local retrospectives, but his own investigations of how chance/coincidence/fate rules the lives of FICTIONAL characters fail to justify the dozens of crappy Chaos Theory movies being made. Obviously many scatterbrained film festival directors and programmers eat up this stuff, but I find nearly all of the recent efforts in this non-genre to be examples of poor writing. And that includes the aptly titled but way overrated BABEL, or the more obvious forerunner to this project, the unbearably contrived 11:14 (which, surprise, surprise, also failed to get a theatrical release in the U.S.).

It's obvious why good actors work for scale in junk like this -they have the prospect of juicy roles (regardless of the absence of a viable structure from which those roles can hang), the half-assed inverted prestige of "going indie", and above all else can relish the opportunity of chewing the scenery for an untested, timid director - you know, the famous Klaus Kinski syndrome -he always preferred to work for hacks rather than geniuses like Leone and Herzog, because he could trample all over them.

Case in point: in Powder Blue we have a lapsed priest played by Forest, obviously aware that you don't have to give back Oscar statuettes based on subsequent poor efforts. His attempts at getting folks to kill him are so preposterously and awkwardly written and staged by our writer/director here that the film basically self-destructs in the first couple of reels.

The connectors between the characters and movie references are lame in the extreme -not worthy of a '60s sexploitation film by Michael Findlay or Doris Wishman (I'm being mean on purpose, but let's face it, this auteur is NOT as advanced in his plot development as say a Russ Meyer or Joe Sarno). The guy watching the stripper turns out to be her long-lost father; the hooker's dog is found by her nerd in shining armor, the creepy young funeral director; Jessica's anecdote quoting ANNIE HALL; the sudden, highly symbolic snowfall helps connect beautiful romanticism to the corny frieze (pun intended) of Liotta's corpse in the snow, giving way to a "Six People You'll Meet in Heaven" beach scene of grandpa stiff and grandson stiff cavorting in what looks like a lift from the idiotic finale of Jodie Foster on the beach with daddy David Morse in CONTACT; Swayze's real-life brother Don popping up as the bouncer in Patrick's strip joint; the heartfelt through-the-glass, phones at ears scene of Biel & Liotta is a remake of an infinitely better Nastassja Kinski scene in Wenders' classic Paris, Texas; the Eddie/Biel "Let's Hug" scene that is straight out of an acting class exercise; and a "Two Tickets to Paris" finale in which Biel's last line is barely audible, etc., etc. Flunk this guy out of screen writing class already.

Yes, the indigestible collection of scenes immortalized in the final cut, for DVD, of POWDER BLUE is just the sort of thing folks shake their heads at when attending film markets. I was always astounded back in the day (about 25 years back) at people who would duck in out of the salles at the Cannes Market or Mifed, watching a reel or two of a film, and then rushing to check out the other films screening simultaneously in nearby theaters. As a film buff I was inculcated with watching films in their entirety -even in the later ages of VHS and DVD I adhere to this policy, not checking out excerpts or jumping to future "chapters". But when you see a film as badly constructed as Powder Blue you can understand why the hard-headed mercenaries of this industry think they can tell early on whether a film is headed nowhere. It's unfair, since even a terrible film is presumably eligible for "redemption" in its final reels, but I'm beginning to see the logic in such impatient behavior.

I went to the theater tonight expecting something very similar to "The Air I Breathe" and the composition was similar in deed, "Powder Blue" is the story of four people, struggling with themselves and their fates.

However, i must disappoint all users that bashed this movie in advance. The story is captivating, comprehensible and sensitively told and the acting is perfect, something one can expect by looking at the cast.

"Powder Blue" didn't blow me away like TAIB but it is a descent drama with a top cast and a touching though sometimes a bit kitschy and predictable Story.

"Powder Blue" wasn't one of those big cinema releases, yet it was a film with a gripping powerful story of the intersecting of complex paths in the city of L.A.. And the all star cast made the film watchable. Set in modern day L.A. on the tough and rumble streets the films main focus is on four characters and it involves the showing of their everyday hardships and problems only all will collide by luck, destiny, and happens chance. Jessica Biel who's always beautiful and such a pleasure to view really shines as a young desperate single mom with a dying kid who's only hope is to earn money to support her cocaine habit by doing nude dancing as a stripper. Enter Ray Liotta as an ex con just released yet he has terminal cancer only he will discover thru Biel's character that life finally does have some touching emotional moments. And Forrest Whitaker is a character you feel desperate for as he is a man with no will to live after losing his wife as he will go to any lengths to be killed. And to round out you have a young mortician played by Eddie Redmayne who's lonely only in the end destiny will have it he will find love with the Biel character. This film is pretty powerful for it's message it sends that no matter how desperate life is for some unexpected hope can be found and everyone has a destiny. Plus no matter how different and complex people are they are all the same as their paths were meant to cross to help one another as in the end that leads to a heavenly and peaceful ending. Overall great film with an all star cast that proves life is a harsh struggle yet with help and connecting their is hope.

No doubt this movie had potential. The cast offers a handful of well-known actors, several of which are more than capable of good acting (Whitaker in particular is usually superb). Unfortunately, most of the well-known stars in this film only had bit parts. Kristofferson, Swayze and Kudrow each maybe have five lines of dialogue in the entire thing. There were several scenes in the movie, one in particular near the end, which simply had no business being in the film at all. Even worse, NONE of the characters' back stories were developed whatsoever, something which may have actually prevented the story from falling completely flat.

This film will obviously be compared to Crash and The Air I Breathe, as I've seen already in several other reviews. Just because a story is "gritty" and emotionally charged does not make it good or even entertaining. This film was plagued by the same issues as The Air I Breathe: mediocre writing, unnatural dialogue and virtually no character development. Crash was successful because it had character development, the story was poignant and somewhat believable, the film itself was artfully edited and the dialogue was well written and very well acted. As the audience, we need to be able to suspend our disbelief in order to accept a "strangers' lives intersecting" type of plot. I had no problem suspending disbelief in Crash. Not the case with Powder Blue.

Putting comparisons aside, was it the worst film I've ever seen? No. In fact, it was still considerably better than The Air I Breathe. The music and cinematography was actually above average. Liotta's character was disappointingly wooden (no surprise there). Whitaker probably did the best he could. Biel definitely offered a brave performance and appeared to really pour herself into her role, although seemed to lose momentum in the end. Bottom line: don't go into Powder Blue with too high expectations.

Allow me to get one thing out of the way right now: if you are a straight male (or gay woman) between the ages of 18-50 you might as well consider this movie required viewing simply because of Jessica Biel's topless scenes. To be honest it's not the greatest thing since sliced bread and it's not really in a sexualized context, but just to say you saw it should be enough. A little juvenile? Sure...but there it is. I'm kidding of course (kind of) but really...not bad.

Basically what you have here feels kind of like a lame rip off of Crash. A lot of stories happening in the same time line that feel like they should intersect a lot more than they do. Without that intersection it feels like a lot of little pieces rather than a whole. I can't help but feel like some of these actors were slumming it, particularly Ray Liotta. Has there been a movie since Field Of Dreams where he didn't play either a dirt bag or a stand up guy with a shady past? Talk about typecasting. There also seems to be a waste of perfectly good Lisa Kudrow in the film. I guess I don't understand casting her in the movie at all for such a small part when I'm sure they could've found someone just as good for a lot less money.

One small technical annoyance...the film has a pronounced grain to it that I assume is supposed to give it a gritty feel. The problem is that the subject matter isn't as gritty as the production values, so it feels a bit over done. Aside from that it's not a bad movie, but not a good movie either. I would have liked it a lot more if the writers had tried to tie the stories together more. As I said before, the way it is feels more like a collection of pieces more than a whole film. I wouldn't pass it by, but I certainly wouldn't tell everyone I know to check it out. It is what it is...pretty mediocre.