Dark Blue

A police film set in Los Angeles. The time is the spring of 1992. A case is going on in the city: four officers beating a man was recorded and a verdict is awaited. Everyone knows what that verdict will bring. Eldon Perry works in a special unit. He sets his own rules, manufactures evidence, shoots when he decides to, and teaches all of it to his young partner as professional knowledge. An investigation opens into a robbery in which four people died. Perry's superior has already decided who will be charged, and this case will close like the others. But the young partner is uneasy. And outside the unit there is an official following the matter from another direction. From there the film joins its two lines: the rot in the investigation and the city's day of judgment. When the verdict is announced the streets burn, and Perry spends the last section inside that crowd. What the narrative is interested in is not one bad policeman but the order that produced him: the film does not defend Perry, but it shows in detail how he was made. Kurt Russell plays Perry, in what counts as one of his hardest roles. Scott Speedman, Michael Michele, Brendan Gleeson and Ving Rhames are in the cast. The story is by James Ellroy; David Ayer wrote the screenplay. Ron Shelton directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes hard police drama and narratives built on Los Angeles. Who it is not for: anyone looking for hope; the film is about the city's worst days and clears nobody.