Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.
Similar titles
You May Also Like
Reviews
Touches You
Thanks for the memories!
Best movie ever!
It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
Two pairs of brothers--one white, one black--find triumphs and tragedies on the streets of Harlem in the late 1920s and early '30s: coronet player Richard Gere, having saved the life of Dutch Schultz after an assassination attempt, is put on the gangster's payroll along with ne'er-do-well brother Nicolas Cage, with Gere assigned to "watch over" Schultz's girlfriend, vamp-singer Diane Lane; tap dancing siblings Gregory Hines and Maurice Hines perform their act at the Cotton Club, which employed black singers, dancers and musicians for the enjoyment of white audiences. It's obvious that director Francis Coppola, who also co-authored the screenplay with William Kennedy ("suggested by" the pictorial history "The Cotton Club" by James Haskins) meant the two halves of the picture to underscore each other, what with sibling rivalries and jealousies and failed affairs with women, but we rarely feel a connection between the characters (and not just the brothers, but the mobsters, racketeers, hangers-on and showgirls to boot). Coppola knows where to put his camera, and his visual style often results in exhilarating moments, but the shallow writing defeats the extraordinary cast as well as the filmmaker--who plows ahead as if all this mercurial melodrama actually meant something to him. I doubt it did. ** from ****
Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club is every bit as dazzling, chaotic and decadent as one might imagine the roaring twenties would have been. it's set in and revolves around the titular jazz club, conducting a boisterous, kaleidoscope study of the various dames, dapper gents, hoodlums, harlots and musicians who called it home. Among them are would be gangster Dixie Dwyer (a slick Richard Gere), Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines), a young Bumpy Johnson (Laurence Fishburne) and renowned psychopathic mobster Dutch Schultz (a ferocious James Remar). Coppola wisely ducks a routine plot line in favor of a helter skelter, raucous cascade of delirious partying, violence and steamy romance, a stylistic choice almost reminiscent of Robert Altman. Characters come and go, fight and feud, drink and dance and generally keep up the kind of manic energy and pizazz that only the 20's could sustain. The cast is positively stacked, so watch for appearances from Nicolas Case, Bob Hoskins, Diane Lane, John P. Ryan, James Russo, Fred Gwynne, Allen Garfield, Ed O Ross, Diane Venora, Woody Strode, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Cobbs, Sofia Coppola and singer Tom Waits as Irving Stark, the club's owner. It's a messily woven tapestry of crime and excess held together by brief encounters, hot blooded conflict and that ever present jazz music which fuels the characters along with the perpetual haze of booze and cigarette smoke. Good times.
Far better than its iffy reputation suggests, The Cotton Club is guilty of being stuffed to the gills, but it also contains mighty fine film making that shows craft both behind and in front of the camera.Set in late 1920s Harlem, the pitch is an area of New York rife with swinging jazz, racism, crooks and gangsters. Prohibition and the depression fill the air just as the talkie movie bursts out of the silver screen. The Cotton Club of the title is the focal point for many of the key character's lives, so Francis Coppola, who stepped in at the eleventh hour of the troubled production, has many threads to juggle. He drops the odd one, but never to the detriment of the verve and swagger of the pic. Violence comes and goes, song and dance often dazzles the eyes and ears, and a cast of hundreds induces that good old game of spot the stars - past, present and future.The narrative has strength via the observations of a major part of America in great transition, with the art design ops and tech crew beavers aiding him considerably via some superb period flavourings There is no getting away from the slightness of some character strands, the director and co choosing to insert another, all be it delightful, dance or song number to fill the void, but the core of the story remains strong throughout. The underworld always looms large, the seedy side of the era pulses away continuously, while the cast enjoy the dressage and frontage of a key time in America's history.Flaws for sure but made with skill and passion and it never bores. Bravo! 7.5/10
Francis Ford Coppola is quoted as saying, "I have genius but no talent." Honestly, I think he has both. But with his December 1984 release The Cotton Club, he unfortunately loses a little of this talent by failing to format a somewhat cohesive storyline. If you ignore that sort of minor flaw, you still get a splashy mob flick that is highly stylized, highly energized, and done with mounds of real panache.Taking place in 1930's Harlem (ah the good old days) and projecting itself as a movie that tries to cram in 2-3 stories in a 2 hr. period, "Club" tells the tale (or tales) of musician Dixie Dwyer, (played by Richard Gere who has amazing screen presence here) his uncontrollable resistance to move up the mob chain, and the resorting-to-murder brother he has to look out for (played with gusto by Nicolas Cage). The film also examines the life of a racially discriminated tap dancer (Gregory Hines) who struts his stuff at where else, The Cotton Club.Projecting itself as a sped up version of Coppola's masterpiece The Godfather (there's a sequence toward the end that pays complete homage to the baptism murder scene in said movie), this torrid vehicle has a fantastic look (very accurate for the time period and not too overdone), brilliant acting by Richard Gere ( Dwyer) and Nicolas Cage ( Dwyer's brother Vincent), and well choreographed, exhilarating tap dance sequences.Coppola, who is in total command of the camera (and his craft) wants to make sure the viewer is worn out by the time the credits roll. He is accurate, doesn't give an inch (he's a perfectionist. All you gotta do is watch the Heart of Darkness documentary), but seems too busy filling the screen with an overload of indelible images. I guess he insists on doing this instead of keeping the viewer focused on exactly what's going on with this talented cast (boy do they give it their all). Try as I might though, I can't fault him. Entertaining and never boring, The Cotton Club excels at making the audience feel unsafe (just like the actual characters in the movie) and it's at least in my mind, a moderate success. This veritable gangster movie is the equivalent of a sugar rush ( in a good way of course). It's one "club" you might want to check out.