Watch Devil in a Blue Dress For Free

That was an excellent one.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Devil In A Blue Dress takes the classic Raymond Chandler mystery form and uproots it just a smidge, setting it in the African American community of 1948 Los Angeles, with terrific results. Noir takes on a double meaning (naughty pun) as WWII vet turned private eye Ezekial "Easy" Rawlins (Denzel Washington) finds himself mired in the quick sands of corruption, coersion and murder most foul after taking on a job that's led him straight to the dirtiest little secret in town. After he accepts a missing persons inquiry from mysterious DeWitt Allbright (Tom Sizemore, first shady and then downright scary when we see what he's really about), he finds himself searching for a girl named Daphne (Jennifer Beals) a runaway with ties to a very powerful politician (Maury Chaykin makes your skin creep and crawl) with some seriously disturbing extra curricular activities. Rawlins recognizes danger when he sees it and tries to back out, but by then he knows too much and it's way late in the game. Now he must navigate the scene like the pro he to escape not only with answers, but perhaps his life. Washington gives him the underdog treatment, a worn out gumshoe who still has some grit left, enough for one last ride in any case. There's an L.A. Confidential type feel to the plot in the sense that it ducks some conventions in order to service true surprise from its audience. Sizemore is a charming viper as the kind of dude you never want to trust (isn't he just the best at playing that?) and Beals subverts the damsel in distress archetype by injecting her performance with a jolt of poison. In terms of L.A. noir this baby is fairly overlooked, but holds its own to this day. Watch for Don Cheadle as well.

This has a convoluted story like out of Chandler. The dreamy woman who has disappeared and the unlikely schmo hired to find her. She is white, a rich man's wife, and thought to have disappeared in the black side of town so they get him as improbable private dick who has to sniff her out, a black guy who just wants to make mortgage to keep owning his house. A lot of snooping in clubs and seamy places around LA. 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 - he's beaten, framed for murder, used as pawn - but now it acquires another layer of significance that conveys a more real plight than Marlowe.And we have a curious camera, a world rife with texture and depth. This isn't the glossy recreation of an era of LA Confidential, more like Altman where we brush against spaces and the world surrounds from all sides, 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 body turns up, his sunny neighborhood that is routinely invaded.It's as good as if adapted from Chandler I daresay, plus about black experience in a world where boundaries are drawn starkly against you, plus a world rife for exploration in and out of these boundaries. It's good stuff, this one. They tried to set it up for future films where he returns as the PI but I see that it didn't pan out. First time's the charm anyway.Noir Meter: 3/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Neo

"Devil in a Blue Dress" is one of those period pieces that so proficiently captures its particular time and place (1940s Los Angeles, the greatest setting in cinema). The art department nailed it, with the signage especially. But it's a well made movie all around, with a well-chosen cast (Denzel Washington, who injects Easy Rawlins with a naive charm; the staggeringly sexy Jennifer Beals; Tom Sizemore, a snake-in-the-grass all the way; and some great supporting character faces. But it's Don Cheadle that steals the show as the wildly unpredictable Mouse (and I love his contentious relationship with Washington).There's great dialogue all over this thing, and its mashing of politics, corruption, murder, sin and racial division makes for engrossing storytelling. Easy has his own arc as he ultimately learns something about how business is actually done in the real world, no longer just a struggling working man. It's downbeat, but also hopeful and sultry in its own way. Terrific neo-noir.8/10

The most interesting element of the film is what happened subsequent to its release – nothing. All the elements of a good origin story for a movie franchise or a television adaptation (like "MASH") are there: a compelling main character ("Easy Rawlings") a setup for further adventures and the books of Walter Mosley for plot ideas. Also race, which is an essential element to the story of 1948 Los Angeles, continues to be a compelling social topic. Certainly some inherent challenges may have dogged efforts to bring the stories to the big or small screen. Period dramas, particularly those that necessitate car chases through long gone parts of Los Angeles, are expensive and difficult to stage and film. Also, the deus ex machina character of "Mouse" played by Don Cheadle presents some serious moral problems with his twitchiest of hair triggers. Also some of the attempts of dark humor focused mainly around Mouse in a serious noir are jarring and out of context with such dark material. As a standalone film, "Devil in a Blue Dress"-presumably not originally based on the Mitch Ryder song-garners a lot of unproven claims of being underrated from internet and mainstream commentators. Certainly, the movie entertains as Rawlings unravels a mystery involving murder, politics and Jennifer Beals in an early role against a backdrop of racial inequity in America's golden west. However, all of these elements are employed to far more compelling effect in a movie two years later called "L.A. Confidential." In short, fans of noir or Washington / Cheadle should find this as required reading while others should just go with "L.A. Confidential".