Dreadfully Boring

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Colors is a movie that shines brightly with quality actors Sean Penn and Robert Duvall headlining the movie and Dennis Hopper sitting in the director's chair for the first time since Easy Rider (1969). The film could have easily been dismissed as a routine action movie but the end result is a gritty crime drama that highlights a major problem across the USA.Colors focuses on the Los Angeles Police Department's CRASH Division (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) combating the gang wars that could explode across Los Angeles at any moment. Amongst the CRASH officers are the 19 year veteran Officer Bob Hodges (Robert Duvall, The Godfather) who treats all the gang members hard but fair yet approaches every problem with a sense of diplomacy. Hodges is partnered with Officer Danny McGavin (Sean Penn, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) a young police officer who is highly capable but has a very short fuse and proves to be his own worst enemy with his aggressive approach to police work, much to the chagrin to Hodges. Hodges and McGavin must work together to prevent an all out war on the streets of Los Angels between the Bloods and the Crips.Sean Penn made his mark with Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and since then has gone from strength to strength with movies such as Bad Boys (1983), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) and At Close Range (1986) which was met with acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Improbably cast as an LAPD officer, Sean Penn turns in an excellent performance as Danny McGavin which sees him continue to come of age. Ironically, Sean Penn found himself on the wrong side of the law during the filming of Colors when he was jailed for punching an extra who photographed him and Robert Duvall without his permission.The ever reliable Robert Duvall who never puts a foot wrong no matter what role he plays or what movie he appears in. Duvall does a fine job as veteran officer Bob Hodges who strives to keep the peace on the streets of Los Angeles as well as keeping his young hotheaded partner in line.María Conchita Alonso (The Running Man), Don Cheadle (Traffic), Damon Wayans (The Last Boy Scout), and Glenn Plummer (Speed) also appear in small but effective roles in Colors and support Sean Penn and Robert Duvall very well.The late Dennis Hopper was a surprise choice as director given that in his stellar career (Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Speed) he has only directed a handful of movies with Easy Rider (1969) being his only successful movie as a director. Here in Colors he has done a quality job bringing the movie to the big screen.Colors was a surprisingly very good movie that is sorely underrated. Thankfully critics did not dismiss this as rubbish and gave the movie credit where it was due. It was also boosted by the star power of Sean Penn and Robert Duvall under the direction of Dennis Hopper. It is gritty and uncompromising, but Colors shines.8/10.

Colors is directed by Dennis Hopper and written by Richard Di Lello and Michael Schiffer. It stars Robert Duvall, Sean Penn, Maria Conchita Alonso, Grand L. Bush, Randy Brooks, Glenn Plummer, Trinidad Silva and Don Cheadle. Music is by Herbie Hancock and cinematography by Haskell Wexler.Danny McGavin (Penn) transfers to the LAPD C.R.A.S.H. unit and is teamed with wise old veteran Bob Hodges (Duvall). Thrust in the middle of the gang wars of L.A., McGavin finds his hot head approach to policing may not be the way forward.Causing a bit of a stir upon release, with its depiction of gang life and violence, Colors is not as incendiary as that early reputation suggests. It's solidly put together, has the odd throat grabbing scene and the message is loud and clear without banging us over the head. It's also note worthy that a deal of authenticity comes out in the script. However, were it not for the lead performances of Penn and Duvall then much of Colors would be rendered as significantly restrained.The two actors find great and believable chemistry whilst never resorting to twee buddy-buddy histrionics. It's this relationship that keeps Colors pulsing, their contrasting styles of policing keeping the character study interesting as the gang life axis fizzles to a near non event. Unfortunately, because the cop pairing is so strong, it means that a romance thread between McGavin and Louisa Gomez (Alonso) feels tacked on and the actress just isn't good enough to lift it away from pointless irritation.With the lead gang players too thinly drawn, it's hard to get a handle on what is meant to be bubbling under the surface of Colors. A shame because there's some good actors spread out in the cast. It's like Hopper set off to make a potent police procedural in the hot-bed of L.A. (filmed on location), but as Duvall and Penn (also making headlines off screen at this time!) began to hold court, he encouraged and stayed with that angle, thus it's not all it can be as intelligent filmic entertainment. Lead actors, a stunningly poignant finale and the sight of Damon Wayans in his underwear dancing with a giant cuddly bunny, ensure it's never dull! But frustrations exist and the question of "what might have been" comes springing to mind as the end credits roll. 6.5/10

Dennis Hopper has directed a thoroughly exoteric movie, accessible to anyone, with not a sign of any psychedelic trappings. An occasional line sounds improvised but otherwise it's conventionally done. It's not bad, either, and might be especially illuminating for people who live in isolated little towns like Deming, New Mexico.It's a story of two cops -- a youngish hothead and hard charger (Penn) and the more laid-back and experienced man on the brink of retirement (Duvall). Both of them get the job done.The plot has Bloods and Crips prominent in the first half. That's to introduce the good folk of Deming to the idea of rival gangs in Los Angeles. But the emphasis shifts to an unnamed barrio gang of Mexican youths led by Trinidad Silva, who calls everyone "Homes", as short for "home boy" or "home boys". It doesn't matter to Silva whether the term of address is used as a singular or plural. Everybody is "Homes." Silva is fine in the role. He has an ambiguous relationship with Duvall's cop. He helps keep the barrio relatively peaceful, seeing to it that his Homes don't do much more than smoke some grass, do some crack, maybe boost things once in a while, and run up more than a dozen parking tickets. He keeps Duvall informed of what's up, while Duvall occasionally does him a favor in return. Trinidad Silva is fine in the role, but it's hard to tell how much range he had. (He's gone now.) He may have been a one-shot deal like Alfonso Bedoya, "Gold Hat" in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." The production design is outstanding. This isn't downtown LA. Nobody drinks cocktails and lives in Malibu. These are seedy, shabby, desolate neighborhoods, alive with people in the way that some kitchen cabinets seem to be alive with cockroaches. And the graffiti is everywhere and in a multiplicity of form. Some is nicely organized into epic murals, if obvious. These are, after all, in the tradition of Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco, and David Siqueiros.Maria Conchita Alonso, a Cuban singer, is pretty, vivacious, and dispensable. There is a black preacher, Troy Curvey, Jr., who mightily deplores the drugs and violence that affect the neighborhood. He and the audience at the funeral have the call-and-response pattern down pat. The ritual is interrupted by a drive-by machine gunning. There is one other drive-by shooting and one or two climactic shoot outs. As I said, this movie is commercially oriented.Not as bad as I'd expected but I hope by now we don't really need this Introduction to Gang Warfare 101, not even in Deming. And, it's a little sad -- watching this, seeing the hills and the palms and the warm sunny climate -- I kept thinking of how tranquil and accommodating the Los Angeles basin was before the city got there. The Chumash Indians lived in nearby Santa Barbara. If you dig through their ancient garbage dumps, you find that they didn't change their way of life for more than three thousand years. Why should they? They had everything they needed. Now we couldn't do without a fleet of patrol cars, that palladium of civilization.

Colors (1988) *** (out of 4) A veteran L.A. police officer (Robert Duvall) gets teamed up with a new, hot-tempered officer (Sean Penn) just as a war between rival gangs breaks out in the streets. The two officers are constantly butting heads over the proper way to handle the situations of the street and things don't get any better once the gangs start fighting back. COLORS was a very popular movie in the day but it's not really a great film. I think there are many very good and many great things in the film but I think a major re-write on the screenplay could have really helped things because no matter how many times I watch the film I can't help but think they're trying to do way too much and end up missing a lot of stuff that should have been simple. On one hand you're looking at a cop-buddy picture and then you have a film trying to show people the law of the streets. I'm sure many were seeing these type of gangs for the first time and director Hopper certainly tries to make one understand why they're in these gangs and why they're willing to lay down their blood for their cause. What doesn't work overly well are a couple side plots dealing with Penn and his relationship with a Mexican woman (Maria Conchita Alonso) with connections to the street. Another thing that doesn't work overly well are all sorts of other subplots dealing with lower entry gang members that never really add up to much. I think there are some moments where the film goes away from the two leads for too long, which certainly makes the film drag in spots. What does work however are the performances by those two leads with both actors doing a great job and even better is the chemistry they have together. The old school Duvall and the new school Penn were the perfect selection for partners here because their acting styles are just so different that they end up mixing together so well. No actor can sell a veteran as great as Duvall and Penn was certainly starting to come into his own around this point in his career and that hot-tempered manor of his was nailed perfectly. The supporting players add some nice performances including Ron Delaney, Larry Sylvester, Don Cheadle and Marlon Wayans in a small role. I've read some reviews that say COLORS is nothing more than a blaxploitation flick for white people but I think this is a tad bit unfair. I think Hopper did a very good job at showing this gang life without glamorizing it and I also think the film does a good job at making the members humans and not just some sort of targets. Hopper certainly seemed to know the material quite well and his direction gets the job done but I think less could have been more.