Review of The Cotton Club (1984) by Lee M — 08 Sep 2007

1920/30s Harlem. The whisky, the jazz, the ladies! But also the mob, the racism, the murders!

The "Cotton Club" is a very succesfull, even though somewhat cliche, portrayal of that explosive mixture. The movie has everything one expects from a major Hollywood production directed by one of the most prominent directors of all times- the cinematography, the involving plot, the intriguing characters and the music. Aah, the music... Personally I'm not a huge fan of jazz (especially modern!), but here it was pure class, and without it this flick would loose all it's atmosphere.

All this was spiced up by some great performances (especially Hoskins, Remar, Gwynne and Garfield).

Of course this film, although I must say that IMHO it is greatly underrated, does posses some significant flaws. One of them- the heavy reliance on overplayed motifs- I have already mentioned. Another serious flaw was the lead cast of Richard Gere, who simply fails to carry the movie accross the barrier that divides 'good' from 'masterpiece'. He plays the trumpet well, I give him that, but just as, quite ironically, one of the characters quips in the film- he's not much of an actor (Nicolas Cage does a much better job as Dwyers impulsive brother).

One might also complain that not enough attention was given to the subplot of Gregory Hines, which is too large to be just another subplot, but by far too short to create a counterbalance for Dixie Dwyer's story. Although I guess that's just being fussy, because during the viewing it's not really bothersome at all.

Anyhow- a very classy, hugely underrated flick.