Review of Powder Blue (2009) by Zarinah H — 31 May 2009

Much has been made about Jessica Biel's 'exposure' in this movie, i.e. revealing shots of T&A, but there's more to the movie than that. The movie itself was engaging, only let down [hence the 3 *] by a mediocre script and lack of competent directing.

Jessia Biel plays Rose Johnny aka Scarlett, an exotic dancer/stripper who works at the Wild Velvet, a gentleman's club. Rose has a young comatose son in hospital, and has to work her a** off [pun intended] to pay the bills. Then there's Ray Liotta portraying Jack Doheny, an ex-con who has spent 25 years behind bars and who is also terminally ill. Jack is hoping to make some sort of connection with his family before he dies. Forest Whitaker plays Charlie, a grieving and desperately suicidal man who is willing to pay lots of money to anyone who can be convinced to kill him. Lastly, there's the strangely named Qwerty Doolittle [Eddie Redmayne], a socially challenged mortician in dire financial straits.

The comparison to "Crash" probably stems from the manner in which the characters eventually cross each other's paths, but the writing is nowhere near as good or compelling as it was in "Crash". Jessica Biel deserves credit for acting her heart out, but somehow, it didn't connect with me as a viewer. The same goes for Forrest Whitaker's performance which seemed rather exaggerated to me. Liotta and Redmayne's performances were quite compelling, and surprisingly, the relatively minor performances of Patrick Swayze [who is almost unrecognizable here as the sleazy club manager], and the transvestite[played by Alejandro Romero]were rather entertaining, and quite funny [inappropriately so in some parts].

This is not a bad movie, but neither is it a masterpiece of human study. Final verdict - a watchable, rather melodramatic human drama.