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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Unless I'm missing something, the latest Ron Shelton picture, "Dark Blue," appears to have absolutely nothing to do with sports. What's going on here? This is the gentleman who is best known for "Bull Durham," "White Men Can't Jump," "Cobb," and "Tin Cup," which challenged the global audience with a daring combination of Kevin Costner and golf. That still leaves many sports that have yet to get the Shelton treatment, and I was looking forward to a tale of limpid love from the dewy world of the N.F.L., or, at the other extreme, a brutish expose of the hell that is interstate croquet. Instead, we get "Dark Blue," which starts with footage of the Rodney King assault in 1991, and ends a year later with looting and riots.
Caught in the eye of the storm is Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell), a veteran of the Special Investigations Squad of the L.A.P.D., although you wonder whether he, like others of his thunderous kind on the force, caused the storm to roll in the first place. Perry may not be primarily a racist, but racism is certainly second nature to him, the disdain seeping from him like sweat. As he points out, he couldn't care less if his young partner, Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), is "dating a sister," but the cops' first concern is to keep the streets...
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