Underrated Movie: The Big Easy
Title: The Big Easy
Year: 1987
Director: Jim McBride
Writer: Daniel Petrie, Jr.
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin, Ned Beatty, John Goodman
The Story: He’s an easy-going detective on the take. She’s an uptight investigator for the district attorney. Her hair is in a bun. When they meet, things get intense.
One Reason Why It’s Great: This works as a slick little thriller and a sizzling romance and an anti-corruption drama. Most movies about corruption don’t work. Too often, coming into these stories from an outside perspective, the corrupt seem totally despicable, and taking a stand seems like an easy decision. Or you get movies that tries so hard to justify the rule-benders that the investigators seem like snotty do-gooders. This movie has a good give and take. Petrie has a great ear for the language of casual graft. He eases us into a believable and unalarming culture of corruption, then snaps our sympathies back to the side of the angels when we realize who’s really being hurt.
Two more reasons at Cockeyed Caravan.
Link to this Post: http://www.moviewithme.com/blog/archives/352
June 30th, 2010 at 00:45
Great “slam against the wall” sex! Petrie always was a wonderful filmmaker… this movie MADE Ellen Barkin’s brief career (before she married Ron Perelman whom she’s now divorced! now that’s THE BIG EASY!). Dennis Quaid not too bad either. Thanks for bringing this one out of the mothballed closet its been in for years…