Cornerhouse Digital Reporter Matt Charlton reviews Devil in a Blue Dress…
Based on Walter Moseley’s book, Devil in a Blue Dress sees Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins (Denzel Washington) down and out in 1940’s Los Angeles. His bartender friend Joppy sets him up for a job with local thug DeWitt Albright. Albright offers Easy $100 to find Daphne Monet, a missing politician’s fiancé. From there, Easy becomes a reluctant private detective and is soon embroiled in a tale of murder, corruption and racial tension.
Easy is an utterly lousy detective, but the power of his conviction prevents him from being a fish out of water. At home stalking the corridors of power or trying to make his mortgage payment, it is an excellent performance from a very watchable Washington. Easy’s everyman character also helps to subtly bring home one of the story’s finer points about the minimal difference between white man and black man. Elsewhere, in a breakout performance, Don Cheadle is especially entertaining as the cold-blooded ‘Mouse’. An early role for Cheadle, he is a coiled spring, ready to pop at any given time.
Devil in a Blue Dress looks good, the acting is good, it’s just a shame that the script doesn’t hold up. Some of the plot revelations are too obvious and signposted early on. It’s fortunate that the atmosphere more than makes up for this, oozing neon and bourbon onto the screen – and isn’t all noir about the style rather than the substance.
What the film does do is explore the post-war black community within L.A. There’s wheels within wheels turning here, as quickly as Easy suddenly finds himself on the receiving end of exceptional amounts of money, others are moving back to their native Texas, life being “too darn fast” in L.A.
A stylish and slightly different take on the noir genre, Devil in a Blue Dress’s greatest strength is not only early performances from Washington and Cheadle, but it’s depiction of a rarely seen post-war black community that isn’t preaching or black to make a point, like you and me, it just exists.
Devil in a Blue Dress screens at Cornerhouse on Wed 16 Oct with special post-screening Q&A with writer Walter Moseley as part of the My Noir season and Manchester Literature Festival.