Colors (film)

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Colors
Colors film.jpg
Original film poster
Directed by Dennis Hopper
Screenplay by Michael Schiffer
Story by Richard Di Lello
Michael Schiffer
Produced by Robert H. Solo
Starring
Cinematography Haskell Wexler
Edited by Robert Estrin
Music by Herbie Hancock
Distributed by Orion Pictures
Release date
  • April 15, 1988 (1988-04-15)
Running time
120 min. (original release)
127 min. (Director's Cut)
CountryUnited States
LanguagesEnglish
Spanish
Budget$10 million
Box office$46,616,067 (domestic) [1]

Colors is a 1988 American police procedural action crime film starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall, and directed by Dennis Hopper. The film takes place in the gang ridden neighborhoods of Los Angeles: late-1980s South Central Los Angeles, Echo Park, Westlake and East Los Angeles. The film centers on Bob Hodges (Duvall), an experienced Los Angeles Police Department C.R.A.S.H. officer, and his rookie partner, Danny McGavin (Penn), who try to stop the gang violence between the Bloods, the Crips, and Hispanic street gangs. Colors relaunched Hopper as a director 19 years after Easy Rider , and inspired discussion over its depiction of gang life and gang violence.

Contents

Plot

Two policemen, "Uncle" Bob Hodges, a respected LAPD officer and Vietnam veteran, and rookie officer Danny McGavin, have just been teamed together in the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) unit that patrols Northwest Los Angeles, East Los Angeles and South Los Angeles.

Hodges is appreciated on the local streets. He is diplomatic on the surface, preaching "rapport" to gang members to encourage them to offer help when it is truly needed, recognizing that every action cops take is scrutinized by the people they are trying to help. Hodges explains his view on policing to his young partner with a joke about bulls and cows. The 21st Street Gang throw a rock at Hodges car and runs until young member, Felipe, gets caught by Hodges. Elsewhere, the Bloods have a funeral for Robert Craig, until the Crips open fire on the church. Hodges and McGavin chase after the Crips until their car flips over and explodes, killing the gang members.

At the 21st Street Gang hangout, Ron Delaney tells the gang members to walk away from the gang life, but they ignore his advice and decided to stay in the gang.

McGavin has a short-lived romance with a waitress named Louisa. Although the pair bond quickly, life lessons are seemingly lost on the aggressive, cavalier McGavin, whose stunts soon bring him notoriety among the gang members and the regular citizens, such as attacking a graffiti artist by spraying his eyes with the paint can. A drug dealer named T gives drugs to young kids before McGavin and Hodges arrive to question him. McGavin punches him in the face in view of angry bystanders before putting him inside their car. At the police station, Hodges physically reprimands McGavin about his wrongful actions against people. Like the offended Hodges, Louisa is angry about McGavin's aggression. She reveals that the graffiti artist that McGavin assaulted was her nephew. Amidst the strain of these relationships, the murder of a Bloods gang member escalates tension between two other gangs. A series of seemingly random incidents culminates with the two partners finding themselves in the middle of the Crips, Bloods and Hispanic barrio war. McGavin wrecks their first unmarked car during a pursuit. Its replacement is vivid yellow, resulting in McGavin being nicknamed "Pac-Man" by officers and gang members alike.

CRASH raids the house of a gang member named Oso and arrest him. He tells the sheriff about the drug dealers, including Hi Top. Hodges and McGavin see Hi Top and he steals a motorcycle from a random civilian. Hodges and McGavin chase after Hi Top and he crashes through a restaurant window. After a physical fight with McGavin and Hodges, he is subdued and arrested. Later, McGavin apologizes to Hodges about his wrongful actions. In response, Hodges tells McGavin that he will be working with a new partner at the start of the next month. In jail, Hi Top gets severely beaten by other inmates. The sheriff questions him about the murder of Robert Craig. After some coercion, Hi Top claims that Rocket (leader of the Crips gang) is responsible for the murder.

Hodges, McGavin, and the LAPD spot a dark blue van that was used in the murder of Robert Craig. They arrest and question two black males about the van and Rocket's girlfriend.

The police search for Rocket in connection with the murder of Robert Craig. They raid the house of Rocket's girlfriend and Officer Baines kills a Crips gang member named Killa Bee, who they had mistaken for Rocket. Killa Bee was reaching for his pants to get dressed, but Officer Baines believed he was reaching for a weapon. The gang members mistakenly believe McGavin killed Killa Bee and put a hit out on him. LAPD questions Officer Baines about the killing of the Killa Bee.

The 21st Street Gang, led by a criminal named Frog, attempts to negotiate a peace and steer clear of the violence. To protect McGavin, Hodges unwittingly exposes Frog as his source of information about the Crips plan to kill McGavin. The Crips learn of this and decide to attack the 21st Street Gang in retaliation for giving information to police. As the 21st Street Gang and Louisa are having a party at their house, the Crips do a drive by shooting on the house. Hodges, McGavin, and LAPD arrive at the scene after the shooting. McGavin encounters Louisa dressing after having sex with a 21st Street gang member and she angrily confronts him, but McGavin leaves. The 21st Street Gang retaliates against the Crips, assaulting their building with shotguns, automatic rifles, machine pistols, and grenades. All of the Crips members are killed, along with one 21st Street Gang member. Each group attempts to right the wrongs against their respective crews as police strive to prevent the violence and regain their authority.

In the end, CRASH moves in on 21st Street Gang. While arresting Frog, Hodges is fatally shot by a 21st Street Gang member nicknamed "Bird". CRASH shoots and kills Bird in retaliation. With medics en route, McGavin comforts the dying Hodges and breaks down with regret as Hodges falls into delirium and finally dies.

Sometime later, a more reserved McGavin has a rookie partner, a black cop who grew up in the neighborhood where they patrol and sports an attitude like the "Pac-Man". McGavin tells him the same joke about the bulls that Hodges taught him, and the younger officer reciprocates in the same way as the young McGavin. The film ends with McGavin considering the cycle of violence as the pair drive on and continue their patrol.

Cast

Production

The movie was filmed entirely in Los Angeles in 1987. The original script by Richard Di Lello took place in Chicago and was more about drug dealing than gang members. Dennis Hopper ordered changes, so Michael Schiffer was hired and the setting was changed to Los Angeles and the focus of the story became more about the world of gang members. [2] [3]

The joke that Hodges tells McGavin regarding the two bulls was lifted from the Pat Conroy novel The Great Santini (which was made into a movie that also starred Duvall) and explains how the character Lt. Col. "Bull" Meechum got his nickname. [4]

Real gang members were hired as "on-location security" as well as actors/extras by producer Robert H. Solo. Two of them were shot during filming. Well-known gang leader and community activist T. Rodgers was cast as Dr. Feelgood. [5]

On April 2, 1987, Sean Penn was arrested for punching an extra on the set of this film who was taking photos of him without permission. Penn was sentenced to 33 days in jail for this assault.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack containing mainly hip hop music was released on April 15, 1988, by Warner Bros. Records. It peaked at 31 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold on July 12, 1988.

The theme song, "Colors", was written and performed by American rapper Ice-T, and issued as the title track for the soundtrack to the film.

Release

Box office

Colors earned over $46 million in its domestic release. [6]

Critical reception

Colors received both praise and criticism. The film has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews, with the consensus; "Colors takes a hard-hitting yet nuanced look at urban gang violence, further elevated by strong performances from a pair of well-matched leads." [7] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [8]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times stated that it "has a superb eye for the poisonous flowering of gang culture amid ghetto life, and an ear to match; along with brilliant cinematography by Haskell Wexler, it's also got a fierce, rollicking sense of motion." [9]

Roger Ebert hailed it as "a special movie – not just a police thriller, but a movie that has researched gangs and given some thought to what it wants to say about them." [10]

The Washington Post's critics, Desson Howe and Hal Hinson were split, with Howe stating that Hopper "covers the mayhem with unadorned, documentary immediacy that transcends otherwise formulaic cop-fare" [11] and Hinson stating that it "must be the least incendiary film about gang life ever made." [12]

One of the more negative reviews of the film appeared on the BBC's Ceefax service, on which critic Louise Hart remarked: "The main weakness of the film is that it concentrates far less on the street gangs than on the growing relationship between the two cops." [13]

Novelization

A novelization based on the film, written by Joel Norst, was published in 1988 [14] [15]

Legacy

The film has been blamed for inspiring gang violence in the country of Belize, with many members of the Crips and Bloods deported to the country from the United States in the 1990s bringing the film - and their own gang affiliations - with them to the country. [16]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Colors at Box Office Mojo
  2. ↑ Lambie, Ryan (August 25, 2015). "Looking back at Dennis Hopper's Colors". Den of Geek. Retrieved February 9, 2024.
  3. ↑ Kelley, Bill (April 17, 1988). "'Colors', Controversy & Hopper In An Exclusive Interview, Dennis Hopper Discusses Colors, His Most Ambitious Filmmaking Venture Since Easy Rider, And Reflects On Three Decades Of Acting". Sun Sentinel. Archived from the original on November 4, 2013. Retrieved February 9, 2024.
  4. ↑ Conroy, Pat (1989). The Great Santini. Old New York Book Shop Press. p. 394. ISBN   978-0937036006.
  5. ↑ "Actor and Community Activist T. Rodgers Passes Away at 65". West Coast Styles. August 20, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2024.
  6. ↑ Klady, Leonard (January 8, 1989). "Box Office Champs, Chumps : The hero of the bottom line was the 46-year-old 'Bambi'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 6, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Colors". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved August 25, 2023.
  8. ↑ "Colors". Metacritic . Fandom, Inc.
  9. ↑ Maslin, Janet (April 15, 1988). "Colors (1988) Review/Film; Police vs. Street Gangs In Hopper's 'Colors'". The New York Times . Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  10. ↑ Ebert, Roger (April 15, 1988). "Colors". Chicago Sun-Times . Archived from the original on November 15, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  11. ↑ Howe, Desson (April 15, 1988). "Colors". The Washington Post . Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  12. ↑ Hinson, Hal (April 15, 1988). "Colors". The Washington Post . Retrieved September 18, 2011.
  13. ↑ BBC "Ceefax" review (p264)
  14. ↑ "Colors by Joel Norst". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved January 22, 2025.
  15. ↑ "Colors". archive.org. Retrieved January 22, 2025.
  16. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : "How the US Exported a Bloods and Crips Gang War to Belize". YouTube . July 15, 2021.
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