Teufel in Blau (1995)

Teufel in Blau: Directed by Carl Franklin. With Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals, Don Cheadle. An African-American man is hired to find a woman, and gets mixed up in a murderous political scandal.

“This has a convoluted story like out of Chandler. Thereu0026#39;s the dreamy woman who has disappeared, the unlikely schmo hired to find her. She is white, a rich manu0026#39;s wife thought to have disappeared in the black side of town. They get him to investigate, a black guy who just wants to make mortgage so he can simply keep owning his house.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA lot of snooping around in clubs and seamy places around LA follows. People turning up dead in the night and he stands to get the rap. Hidden machinations that involve people in high places, a set of incriminating photos with a mayoral election in the balance. And all this as the noir world that turns against the protagonist – heu0026#39;s beaten, framed for murder, used as pawn – but, being a black man, it now acquires another layer of significance that conveys a more real plight than Marlowe.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd we have a curious eye of the camera, a world rife with texture and depth. This isnu0026#39;t the glossy recreation of an era that we find in LA Confidential, but more like Altman where we brush against spaces and the world surrounds from all sides. In this aspect itu0026#39;s worthy of The Long Goodbye. It has all these marvelous places, the blues club above the convenience store, the cabin up in the hills where a dead body turns up, his sunny neighborhood that is routinely invaded.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eItu0026#39;s as good as if adapted from Chandler, plus about black experience in a world where boundaries are drawn starkly against you, plus a world rife for exploration as these boundaries are tranversed. Itu0026#39;s good stuff, this one. They tried to set it up for future films where Denzel returns as the PI but I see that it didnu0026#39;t pan out. First timeu0026#39;s the charm anyway.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNoir Meter: 3/4 / Neo-noir or post noir? Neo”