The Cotton Club [Region 2] dvd movie.|
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Features • PAL In Theaters : 14 December, 1984 |
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The Cotton Club [Region 2] description The Cotton Club is routinely eclipsed by the controversies that surrounded its tumultuous production, but the film itself offers abundant pleasures that should not be overlooked. If Apocalypse Now represents the triumph of director Francis Coppola's perilous ambition, then The Cotton Club represents the ungainly glory of uncontrolled genius, as brilliant as it is out of its depth. As an upscale homage to classic gangster films it's frequently astonishing, cramming a thick novel's worth of plot and characters into 129 minutes, gloriously serviced by impeccable production design, elegant cinematography, and stylistic flourishes that show Coppola at the top of his game. What The Cotton Club lacks is cohesion. As written by Coppola and novelist William Kennedy (then enjoying the peak of his critical acclaim), the movie struggles to exceed the narrative scope of The Godfather, but its multiple early-'30s plot lines fail to form any strong connective tissue. It's three (or four) movies in one, with cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere, playing his own jazzy solos) drifting from one story to the next--loving a young, ambitious vamp (Diane Lane, with whom Gere shares precious little chemistry), enjoying the success of a hotshot hoofer (Gregory Hines), and protecting his brazen bother (Coppola's then-newcomer nephew, Nicolas Cage) from the deadly temper of mob boss Dutch Schultz (James Remar). Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne also score big in grand supporting roles, but The Cotton Club is perhaps best appreciated for its meticulous re-creation of Harlem's Cotton Club heyday, and the brilliant music (Ellington, Calloway, etc.) that brought rhythm to gangland's rat-a-tat-tat. --Jeff Shannon |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Great talent somewhat wasted by a messy plot--can anybody help me write this review? |
| The Cotton Club just plain tries too hard. It's a movie about gangsters; it's a movie about a love affair between two black people who work as dancers at The Cotton Club; it's a movie about one newcomer gangster who falls in love with a gangster's girlfriend; it's a movie about...oh, well, you get the idea.
The music is wonderful; and I admired the superb talent of Gregory Hines when he dances in this movie. Not only does Richard Gere actually play his own cornet solos; he also acts very convincingly as Dixie Dwyer, a young man who just by chance saves a gangster's life and gets the reward of being inducted into the mob. And what a mob--Fred Gwynne as a mobster, Diane Lane as the girlfriend of gangster "Dutchman" Dutch Schultz (James Remar) and Nicolas Cage as Gere's younger brother who gets swept up by the mob and who ultimately pays a hefty price for it. The plot twists and turns as Dixie (Richard Gere) and his mobster friends try to manage the Harlem numbers business--and Dixie even winds up spending some time in Hollywood acting in a movie within a movie after he is noticed by Gloria Swanson at The Cotton Club. The mobsters fight over territory in Harlem; and there's a fair amount of violence in this film. If graphic violence makes you uncomfortable, I would suggest a different movie for tonight. It's also interesting to follow the relationship between Dixie and "Dutchman's" girlfriend played by Diane Lane. At the same time that the mob world spins around, there is a subplot between the two black dancers who work at The Cotton Club. Gregory Hines and Lonnette McKee have good chemistry between them. Unfortunately the two plots never really intertwine; and I think it would have been a better movie if the production team let go of some of the complications and twists in the plot, let go of a couple of characters to focus more on the remaining principle characters and then tied the two plots together. That's a serious disappointment; and with the corny ending (I won't specify what you'll get) it just plain lets me down. The cinematography reflects good judgment; and the choreography is excellent. I loved the lighting and the dancing scenes in The Cotton Club; and the set design reflects a lot of care, too. It's too bad that the quality of the set design and choreography don't carry over into the movie's plot. Sigh. If you like entertainment that allows you to just relax and be taken wherever a movie takes you with its plot, then you very well may enjoy this film. The superlative dance numbers enhance the quality of this film, too. Don't be surprised, however, if midway through the film you realize there's just too much action going on. I agree with the majority of the other reviewers when they write that there are too many "principle characters." I would recommend The Cotton Club for diehard fans of mobster movies as this is not one of the better gangster films that would attract larger audiences. In addition, people who enjoy excellent dance numbers will also enjoy this movie. It's not The Godfather nor is it West Side Story; and that's a crying shame. |
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