Day 60 The Big Easy (1987)

It seems to my memory, that great things were predicted for Director Jim McBride after this film, that’s not the way it went. In the 80s he had three pretty good sized films and then it was TV work and small projects and they were intermittent at best. This film was supposed to launch him to greatness, but it did limited business and despite some awards, it did not produce the desired effect.

Dennis Quaid stars as a New Orleans detective with a shaky relationship to integrity. He seems like a good cop but he goes along with the easy corruption that seems to flourish in his precinct. He crosses paths with a state District Attorney played by Ellen Barkin and sexual tension starts to draw the audience in. Before they get too seriously entangled with one another, Quaid’s character gets caught up in a sting designed to root out that corruption, and of course this State Attorney is in charge of the operation.

There is also a murder investigation which looks like it may be a gang war, but it turns into something else. The recently passed Ned Beatty plays the police captain of Remy’s(Quaid’s character) precinct and he is also romantically involved with Remy’s widowed mother. The mystery and crime elements are the least interseting part of the film, it is an insight into the culture of the Cajun family that Remy comes from, and the loose environment of police practices in The Big Easy, as New Orleans ifs referred to here, that make this worth a watch. This was the first place I ever heard of zydeco music, much less listened to any of it, and the movie was filmed on contemporary New Orleans locations.

Although it may seem a little exaggerated, I thought Quaid’s Cajun accent was solid, but the best thing about it is that it is consistent. It does not come and go like the accents of other actors. Barkin was coming off of some good secondary roles in “Buckaroo Banzai” and “Eddie and the Cruisers”, and this was a starring opportunity that she took on with great confidence. The sultry love interest would be a recurring part she would play for the next decade. It was John Goodman who would be making a splash with his career in the next few years. I noticed him in the previous year in David Byrne’s “True Stories” and the next year he starred in the breakout hit TV show “Roseanne”. In this he is one of the other detectives who works with Quaid. It’s not a big part but he had a little fun with it.

This was a date night movie for Dee and I, we left our one year old with Grandma and went out for the evening. I’m pretty sure this was another film we took in at the Alhambra Place, just four or five blocks North of where we lived on Garfield Ave. The most memorable scene, other than the sex moments, involved using a magnet to blank out some VHS tapes that contain evidence. Not too long ago, I saw the same idea being done more elaborately on “Breaking Bad”.