Movie Reviewed: The Big Easy
Director: Jim McBride
Date Watched: 5 September 2021
jamesintexas rating: **1/2
I think that I may have liked this more if I had seen it when it came out in 1986. Despite committed performances by Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin and an impossibly impeccable sense of place with New Orleans locales, The Big Easy lacks storytelling grace and style, seems deeply uncomfortable/ugly in its treatment of both women and African-Americans, and it lingers as a quirky, kinda fun mystery with lots of great touches, Quaid's Capote-esque lawyer among them.
I think that director Jim McBride's commitment to the light corruption of the NOPD overshadows the gruesomeness of the storytelling and its implications. Ned Beatty does what he can as the beleaguered police captain dating Quaid's mom, but the real challenge here is Barkin's character, a new DA. She is not treated respectfully; instead, she is an object of uptight ridicule often, objectified, kidnapped by police officers, and generally harassed. The chemistry between her and Quaid is apparent and palpable, but the film could have taken itself to some better, more interesting places if there's was a connection of intellectual equals, of debate and ideas as well as the physical. By reducing her to a series of traits and focusing on her ineptness or nervousness, it makes this always Quaid's picture, and his energy drives everything. The mystery is kind of fun, though the police work to solve it involves...finding a car already in police custody... Chinatown, this is not. But, it was fun, breezy, and the music on the soundtrack and in the film performed live was incredible, as was Quaid's commitment to a Cajun accent. A bit artless and clumsy, The Big Easy collapses in on itself, but I enjoyed watching it once.
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