Review of Powder Blue (2009) by Philip C — 29 Jan 2011

A film trying so so hard to carry its message across to the masses. Depressed individuals in a town and their lives interconnecting is nothing new nor revolutionary. It was done to overrated death in "Crash" and subsequent spin-offs since.

For what it is though "Powder Blue" is half-decent. The cinematography is nice, the characters somewhat involving, but mostly unbelievable. Forest Whitaker moseys along throughout the film, Ray Liotta and Jessica Biel's plot thread is laughable and predictable, and Patrick Swayze's final film performance was nothing but a 2-bit caricature of a Southern trash stripclub owner.

Jessica Biel is obviously the selling point of the picture, since before the film's release, the Internet ran wild with news that it was Biel's first topless nude scene. It was true, and while that scene is in the film of course, it's nowhere near as titillating as it could've been expected to be, because simply it doesn't fit with the tone.

Biel overacts through much of the film and simply at the end the film runs out of steam for hammering down its implicit message so explicitly. Timothy Lihn Bui has his heart in the game but somewhere along time for gametime, it failed.