Review of The Cotton Club (1984) by Alison O — 07 Dec 2003

VIDEO.

Nearly 20 years old now, this gangster musical is a kind of Bugsy Malone with grown-ups but without the laughs. The recent death of Gregory Hines prompted me to dig out this video recording, and despite a plethora of negative reviews, I found it an interesting window on the early movie careers of Nicolas Cage, Richard Gere, Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins. Hines - whose story of a tap dancer who falls in love with a mixed race chorus girl is somewhat tacked on to the main gangster story - puts in a laudable performance in a movie that wouldn't look out of place on a double bill with the more recent Chicago, Gere being the link between the two. Kudos to that man also for a). doing his own cornet solos and b). agreeing to a role where he'd be called a bad actor. Somewhat theatrical in its dialogue and stage directions, the closing sequence where the action cuts between the stage and a real railway station sticks in the memory.