Watch The Cotton Club For Free

Highly Overrated But Still Good

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Viewed in retro section of the 2017 Berlin Film Festival. The Cotton Club was a famous night club in Harlem. The story follows the people that visited the club, the mobsters that ran it, and the Jazz music and dancing that made it so famous. Director: Francis Ford Coppola (as Francis Coppola) Stars: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins et al. Thankfully, following the dismal horror of "El Bar"day 6 ended on a very upbeat note with a screening of Francis Coppola's 1974 musical masterpiece, The Cotton Club. in the retrospectives sidebar. This was second festival film starring Richard Gere (the other was the abominable "The Dinner" in competition) -- but 32 years younger. With an all star cast including Bob Hoskins, incredible tap dancer Gregory Hines, and a gorgeous Diane Lane in possibly her most captivating role ever as a blonde floozy and gun moll at the end of the Roaring Twenties. The story begins in Harlem in 1928 and follows events at the fabled Jazz Age Cotton Club up through the stock market crash of 1929 then on to 1931. The club whose entertainers were mostly black was owned by white mobsters so the racial tension of the time is a major issue in the film -- notably the secondary love story between Hines and a beautiful club entertainer who is pale skinned enough to pass for white. In one comical scene when they try to check in to a hotel and are told that no mixed race couples are allowed, the flustered desk clerk asks her "What color Are You!" -- Machine gun Shootouts alternate with lavish dance production numbers in what is probably the only Gangster-Musical ever made. Classic film joy from Beginning to end in which Gere plays his own cornet solos and Gregory Hines rocks the screen with several sequences of divinely inspired tap dancing. Who could ask for anything more?! The plot was a bit overly convoluted and dragged somewhat here and there so I can't give it a full ten stars but it was overall a fully packed film experience and made my festival day. The mass dance numbers are redolent of Bollywood and that is a compliment, not a put down!

Good prohibition-era gangster movie. Not great though - many flaws. The set up and main plot were good. It gave the movie a grittiness mixed with romance that could have gone somewhere. However, many of the secondary plots were uninteresting and/or badly done. The Gregory Hines sub-plot was probably the worst of the lot: drifts throughout, hammy acting and a lame attempt at exposing racial inequality in the 1920s.On that note, the movie does take a tilt at racial issues, but pulls its punches. An opportunity wasted.Writer-director Francis Ford Coppola and writer Mario Puzo, who also collaborated on The Godfather series, would have done better if they just took that Godfather formula and stuck to it. Make a gritty, hard- edged gangster movie, and that alone. Instead we have pointless sub- plots that add nothing and subtract a lot.Performances are varied, but mostly let the movie down. Richard Gere overacts in the lead role. His performance just feels so overdone at times it was hard to find convincing. Gregory Hines is even worse - hammy. James Remar also overdoes it as Dutch Schultz.Nicholas Cage (Francis Ford Coppola's nephew, by the way), is pretty bad in his role. Way over the top delivery, and just seems silly. Surprised his career lasted much longer, though am glad it did.Best performances come from Diane Lane (then only 18) and Bob Hoskins (though he isn't capable of a bad performance).The supporting cast also includes some big names, though some weren't famous at the time: Tom Waits, Laurence Fishburn, Jennifer Grey (in her third movie). Sofia Coppola and Mario van Peebles have very minor roles.A bit more focus and better performances and this could have been a great movie.

Richard Gere is a trumpet and piano player who is hired by the famous gangster Dutch Schultz to provide some music at parties and to squire around Dutch's girl friend, Diane Lane, when Dutch is busy browbeating and killing people elsewhere. Gere and Lane fall for each other. Complications ensue. There is a sub plot involving alienation between Gregory Hines and his brother, a duo tap-dancing act, and they finally make up. The plot centers around -- or whirls around -- the Cotton Club, a fashionable night club in Harlem in which talented African-Americans provided entertainment for rich white couples and celebrities.Frankly, I found myself confused about some of the turns in the plot. The one thing I was able to keep straight is that all the murderers and thick-necked traitorous goons were white, while the black folk were all good. Dutch Schultz (James Remar) is particularly contemptible. The guy has no sense of humor. He's always scowling. And he gives too many orders like, "Get me a cigar," and "Tie my shoes," and "Where is my garter belt?" After a scuffle with Richard Gere and Gregory Hines in The Cotton Club, he and his sour henchmen drive to The Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey, where they are shot to pieces by a rival gang. I was honestly glad to see Schultz get it. With Newark the way it is today, I don't think he'd have made it as far as the chop house.The Cotton Club was famous, really famous, and Harlem was aboom in the 1920s and part of the 30s. Duke Ellington played there, Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway, everybody who was anybody. It was called "going slumming" and was a must-visit for movie stars. An unrecognizable Diane Venora plays Gloria Swanson, who gets Gere a job as an actor in a Hollywood movie.How does is the Cotton Club's entertainment fitted into the movie? Not so neatly. There are some great performers, including "Honey" Coles, and Coppola lets the camera roll while they do their stuff -- once in a while, for two or three numbers. But he makes the same mistake he made with Fred Astaire in "Finian's Rainbow." Too often he cuts directly from a dancer's upper torso to a close up of the dancer's feet. And the cuts are too fast to allow the audience to appreciate what's going on. And there is a LOT going on during a well-choreographed dance, with the performer's whole body involved. I can say this with some certainty because I studied dance and, after a good deal of effort, found that, as a dancer, I had all the finely honed skills of a performing seal. It really puzzled me. I asked myself, "Self, what the hell is wrong with your kinetic sense?", but the answer was a confusing explanation of myoneural plates and I gave up trying to understand. Some people have it. Some don't.Richard Gere is the central figure and he does all right by the role. He's edgier and more impulsive than ever, which is saying a lot. When he gets the proper role, Gere can do it to death, although I must say I found him no more than adequate as my supporting player in the poetic masterpiece, "No Mercy." I had to carry the kid through the whole picture by giving him sound advice like, "Just say your lines and make sure you don't look at the camera". And, I swear, whoever dubbed his trumpet solos couldn't find anything inventive in the subdued variations on the melodic theme. Listen to Gere's solos and then listen to a CD of Bix Beiderbecke or Louis Armstrong.

Dixie Dwyer is a jazz musician who begins working with mobsters to advance his career.Then he goes and falls for Vera Cicero, the girlfriend of the famous Jewish gangster, Dutch Schultz.He eventually becomes a Hollywood film star.His younger brother Vincent becomes a gangster in Schultz' mob.The Cotton Club (1984) is directed by Francis Ford Coppola.It's produced by the 80-year old producer Robert Evans.In the writing team there were Coppola and Mario Puzo, writer of The Godfather novel.The movie was a flop, even though everybody had great expectations for it.Richard Gere does very good job in the lead.The part was originally offered for Sylvester Stallone, who turned it down.Coppola's nephew Nicholas Cage is great as Vincent Dwyer.Diane Lane is fantastic as Vera.The great late Gregory Hines is terrific as the dancer Sandman Williams.Lonette McKee is wonderful as his girl Lila Rose Oliver.Gregory's brother Maurice Hines is great as his film brother Clay.Her character is loosely based on Lena Horne.Bob Hoskins is brilliant as the mobster and club owner Owney Madden.Fred Gwynne is one of the kind as his right-hand man Frenchy Demange.James Remar plays Dutch Schultz and he does it with style.Great job by Allen Garfield, who plays Abbadabba Berman.Laurence Fishburne is very good as Bumpy Rhodes.Musician Tom Waits plays Irving Starck.Jennifer Grey portrays Patsy Dwyer.Diane Venora is Gloria Swanson.Bill Cobbs is Big Joe Ison.Woody Strode portrays Holmes.Robert Earl Jones is Stage Door Joe.The young Sofia Coppola is seen as Child in Street.Mario Van Peebles is Dancer.This movie is better than its reputation.It does give a good portrayal of the 1930's.The movie has got some good scenes.The drive-by shooting, where Vincent and his men accidentally kill the kid, is one of them.And so is where Vincent is shot by Schultz' men in a drugstore telephone booth.Coppola did a fine job.The result may not be a masterpiece, but a good movie anyway.