Colors

Dennis Hopper – 1988 – USA

Though not without its power, especially thanks to its lead performance by Robert Duvall, Colors is ultimately a relic of mid-80s hysteria about gangs and drugs.  Along with ritual cult abuse, street gangs were a primary moral panic of the decade, resulting in absurd rules penalizing high school kids for wearing red or blue clothing and in over-the-top earnest warnings from politicians, cops, teachers and celebrities about the dangers of gang-related activity.  As director, Dennis Hopper shows little panache compared to his previous, more experimental work as a filmmaker, and the film is apparently the final step in his near-miraculous career rehabilitation, which included (more admirably) his powerhouse work as an actor in River’s Edge, Blue Velvet and Hoosiers (all 1986), the latter of which won him an Oscar nomination.  With Colors, he seems to be little more than a hired man, and it’s additionally a bit disturbing that the film’s overtly right-wing and borderline racist attitudes are presented by the same man who gave us the generation-defining Easy Rider (1969).  Politics aside, the film is unsatisfying artistically because it bets everything on its social importance as an expose on gangs; the type of film that never stops reminding you how much research the screenwriter(s) did and is going to make you listen to every word of it.  Without the name stars and the R rating, it’s little different from a TV movie-of-the-week about which poor schoolkids might have earned points for writing a report.