The Cotton Club | Richard Gere, Gregory Hines

The Cotton Club | Richard Gere, Gregory Hines | Great talent somewhat wasted by a messy plot--can anybody help me write this review?

DVDs:

The Cotton Club

	The Cotton Club Richard Gere, Gregory Hines MGM (Video & DVD), 2001 average customer review:based on 39 reviews view larger image
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Oscar®-winners* Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo rejoin forces to create a mesmerizing (L.A. Weekly) homage to 1930s gangster films and musicals. Nominated** for three Oscars® The Cotton Club is a genuine vision (Newsweek) of the golden age of jazz you won t soon forget!1928 New York. Spirits are high and sultry jazz lively dancing and ruthless gangsters rule supreme. In the center of it all is Harlem s Cotton Club. Playing on stage is cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Gere) who dreams of the big time but he s too mixed up with the club s owner (Hoskins) -- and his sexy moll (Lane) -- to get anywhere fast. Add the frustration of tap sensation Sandman Williams (Hines) who can t touch his girl the lovely lounge singer Lea Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee) and you ve got a short fuse ready to go. As tensions rise so do tempers and the legendary nightclub becomes a pressure cooker of jilted loves and mob jobs that blows the lid off one of the most shocking showdowns ever staged.System Requirements: Running Time 129 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 027616864369 Manufacturer No: 1002205

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THE COTTON CLUB

WAS NOT COMPATABLE WITH MY DVD PLAYER. I SENT BACK AND YOU REFUNDED MY MONEY.

Great talent somewhat wasted by a messy plot--can anybody help me write this review?

The Cotton Club just plain tries too hard. It's a movie about gangsters; it's a movie about a love affair between two black people who work as dancers at The Cotton Club; it's a movie about one newcomer gangster who falls in love with a gangster's girlfriend; it's a movie about...oh, well, you get the idea.

The music is wonderful; and I admired the superb talent of Gregory Hines when he dances in this movie. Not only does Richard Gere actually play his own cornet solos; he also acts very convincingly as Dixie Dwyer, a young man who just by chance saves a gangster's life and gets the reward of being inducted into the mob. And what a mob--Fred Gwynne as a mobster, Diane Lane as the girlfriend of gangster "Dutchman" Dutch Schultz (James Remar) and Nicolas Cage as Gere's younger brother who gets swept up by the mob and who ultimately pays a hefty price for it.

The plot twists and turns as Dixie (Richard Gere) and his mobster friends try to manage the Harlem numbers business--and Dixie even winds up spending some time in Hollywood acting in a movie within a movie after he is noticed by Gloria Swanson at The Cotton Club. The mobsters fight over territory in Harlem; and there's a fair amount of violence in this film. If graphic violence makes you uncomfortable, I would suggest a different movie for tonight. It's also interesting to follow the relationship between Dixie and "Dutchman's" girlfriend played by Diane Lane.

At the same time that the mob world spins around, there is a subplot between the two black dancers who work at The Cotton Club. Gregory Hines and Lonnette McKee have good chemistry between them. Unfortunately the two plots never really intertwine; and I think it would have been a better movie if the production team let go of some of the complications and twists in the plot, let go of a couple of characters to focus more on the remaining principle characters and then tied the two plots together. That's a serious disappointment; and with the corny ending (I won't specify what you'll get) it just plain lets me down.

The cinematography reflects good judgment; and the choreography is excellent. I loved the lighting and the dancing scenes in The Cotton Club; and the set design reflects a lot of care, too. It's too bad that the quality of the set design and choreography don't carry over into the movie's plot. Sigh.

If you like entertainment that allows you to just relax and be taken wherever a movie takes you with its plot, then you very well may enjoy this film. The superlative dance numbers enhance the quality of this film, too. Don't be surprised, however, if midway through the film you realize there's just too much action going on. I agree with the majority of the other reviewers when they write that there are too many "principle characters."

I would recommend The Cotton Club for diehard fans of mobster movies as this is not one of the better gangster films that would attract larger audiences. In addition, people who enjoy excellent dance numbers will also enjoy this movie. It's not The Godfather nor is it West Side Story; and that's a crying shame.

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Ruined By Producer And Star

The Cotton Club was supposed to be a stage-door romance starring Gregory Hines. Robert Evans & Richard Gere ruined the movie by turning it into a cliche ridden mob story. I give this 3 stars for the look of the film, the music & the black performance pieces. A sad waste.

A good jazz film

The Cotton Club has a fine Duke Ellington atmosphere and the casting is excellent. The only drawback is that Richard Gere is a much better actor than a cornet player. There are still cornetists or trumpetists in USA capable to play the traditional tunes required for this film reaching the top quality.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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