Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.
Dark Blue is carried largely by Kurt Russell's committed, morally complex performance as the corrupt detective Eldon Perry, which elevates material that is otherwise fairly familiar LAPD corruption territory. The Rodney King riots provide a vivid and historically resonant backdrop that gives the film some dramatic weight, but the plot mechanics follow a well-worn formula of corrupt-cop-comes-to-reckoning stories. Cinematography is competent and gritty but unremarkable. Novelty is limited — the corrupt LA cop drama had been well-covered by L.A. Confidential and Training Day before this arrived, and Dark Blue doesn't bring a sufficiently distinctive voice or vision to the genre. The ending offers a degree of genuine moral reckoning but resolves a bit too neatly given the darkness that precedes it.