Dark Blue

Ron Shelton's Dark Blue drops into Los Angeles in April 1992, the week the Rodney King verdict is about to land, and follows a robbery-homicide unit already rotten to the core. Kurt Russell plays Eldon Perry, a veteran detective who has spent so long bending the rules that he can no longer tell where the job ends and the corruption begins. His partner, Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), is younger and greener, and watching Perry work is like watching a man teach a master class in getting away with it. The film is less a whodunit than a pressure cooker, tracking a single investigation while the city outside the squad room edges toward combustion.

Shelton directs from a script by David Ayer, working from a story by James Ellroy, and the Ellroy fingerprints are all over it: clipped dialogue, institutional rot, cops who talk like they are already guilty. The supporting cast is deep. Brendan Gleeson is Jack Van Meter, the unit's commanding officer and the source of much of the poison. Ving Rhames plays Arthur Holland, an Internal Affairs commander who has been waiting years for a reason to take Perry down. Michael Michele is Beth Williamson, a homicide detective trying to do clean work inside a dirty house. Kurupt shows up as Darryl Orchard, a small-time robber whose case becomes the fuse.

The production was a modest one, shot for a reported $15 million and released in December 2002, where it grossed just over $12 million domestically. Reviews were mixed, but the film has aged into something sharper than its initial reception suggested, largely because Russell's performance is so committed and so ugly. It is a crime thriller with a moral conflict at its center, and it does not offer easy comfort about who the bad guys are. [edit]

Los Angeles, April 1992. The city is a tinderbox, and the LAPD's robbery-homicide division is already smoldering from the inside. Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) is a veteran detective who has spent his career bending rules, planting evidence, and protecting his superiors to the point where he can no longer distinguish between policing and criminality. He is a man of genuine skill and charisma, but his moral compass has been corroded by years of institutional compromise. He works under Jack Van Meter (Brendan Gleeson), a commanding officer who is the source of much of the division's corruption and who treats Perry as a useful instrument.

Perry's partner is Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), a younger, greener detective who is being groomed in Perry's methods. Watching Perry work is, as the film frames it, like watching a master class in getting away with it, and Keough is caught between admiration for his mentor and a growing unease about what the job has become. Meanwhile, Internal Affairs commander Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames) has spent years waiting for a reason to take Perry and Van Meter down, and he is closing in. Beth Williamson (Michael Michele) is a homicide detective trying to do clean work inside a dirty house, navigating a department that rewards loyalty over integrity.

The central investigation concerns a robbery-homicide: a small-time crook, Darryl Orchard (Kurupt), becomes the fuse for a case that spirals outward into the department's systemic corruption. As Perry and Keough pursue the case, the city outside the squad room edges toward combustion. The King verdict is imminent, and the tension between the police and the community is palpable. The film is less a whodunit than a pressure cooker, tracking a single investigation while the moral conflict at its center, who the bad guys actually are, remains deliberately unresolved. Supporting players include Dash Mihok as Gary Sidwell, Jonathan Banks as James Barcomb, Lolita Davidovich as Sally Perry (Eldon's wife), Khandi Alexander as Janelle Holland, Dana Lee as Henry Kim, and Chapman Way as Eldon Perry III.[edit]