True Colors
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Movie Reviews of True Colors
Movie Review: Favorite!
Summary: 5 Stars
John Cusack is my daughter's favorite and these got here just in time for her birthday - thank you!Movie Review: Good Flick
Summary: 4 Stars
A wonderful early 90s film that still holds on to the lure of classic 80s movies. It a pretty good story about two young men and the paths they take out of law school. If your a cusack or james spader fan it is a movie to see. In addition if you ever attended the University of Virginia Law School or as an undergraduate, it is a must see. The first 20 minutes or so of the movie takes place on grounds. You will recognize many places including, the rotunda, mincers, michaels bistro, brown college, the tracks by wild wings and more.Movie Review: Worth owning versus renting
Summary: 4 Stars
Great movie. The storyline is very interesting and intrigues me every time I watch it. The dvd arrived on time and in good condition.Movie Review: Very well-played, but almost written at the level of an after-school special.
Summary: 3 Stars
by Dane Youssef
The Brat Pack actors are certainly a talented bunch. Everyone has a favorite. For me, it's a toss-up between James Spader and Anthony Michael Hall.
John Cusack was mesmerizing back in his early-days. He was a teenager, but he looked, sounded and acted very adult for his age. "The Sure Thing" put him on the map and "Say Anything..." made him a household name.
But while Crowe's "Say Anything..." was obviously a great movie, it was both a blessing and a curse for Cusack, who has rarely played anything else in his career. I know, I know. He's been in countless other movies. But "a rose by any other name..." His character, no matter what the movie, is essentially always Lloyd Dobbler.
Spader sometimes played other types besides the oily Steff from "Pretty in Pink." His typecast-breaking turn came when he played the lead in this movie.
But I know Cusack can do more. I keep waiting for him to. Which was one of my guilty pleasures of this movie.
The story and plot are the right out of the old fable about the rich man and the poor man who come together and create something special... and then the rich man betrays the poor man and casts him aside. And the poor man plots to take revenge...
Another big twist that "True Colors" has is it's twist in typecasting. Cusack specializes in playing sharp, calculated, smarter-than-average teenager... who's heartbroken and devastated... and is desperately trying to win back the girl. Here, Cusack plays a character who's as smart as the heroes he usually plays, though here he uses his intellectual gifts for evil instead of good. His goal is usually to win the girl's heart. Here he betrays the girl (and his close friend) in order to get what he wants.
And Spader usually plays blue-blooded, silver-spoon fed, upper-class yuppie scummy villains. Here he's still a rich blue-blooded yuppie. But a hero, who uses his financial connections to right wrongs and do just.
The two meet the first day of law school where there's a fender-bender and brief scuffle. Cusack angrily attacks Spader violently and blames him for the whole thing and the two have to be pulled apart. Later on, things get worse as they discover... their assigned to be roommates. Cusack smooths things over by admitting the whole thing was his fault. You'll see why.
Afterwords, the two form a fast friendship and Spader even uses his financial backgrounds and connections to help Cusack out. Later we find out that Cusack is lying about his background to fit in and the payoff feels lifted out of a soppy, moralizing and insipid sit-com where today's moral is... "If you have to be someone else to get a friend, then they're really not your friend."
Richard Widmark is great as well as the ailing senator who sees potential and ambition in Cusack after he sees what looks like Cusack doing him a favor, little realizing how dangerous Cusack is. Spader girlfriend considers breaking off the relationship for Cusack who can keep her bringing in big cash. She doesn't realize that Cusack is willing to betray her too, in order to get what he wants.
One of the major problems is that their true colors are obvious from the beginning. Cusack is clearly someone not to trust from the start and Spader all but actually walks on water. Another is that the movie is too thin. There isn't enough entry.
The movie... skims too much of the surface. And Spader's big plan and the finale is pretty tacked on.
The movie aspires to be a movie like "Patriot Games" or "Citizen Kane." But everything is routine and predictable and there are precious few new touches to this tired formula. If screenwriter Kevin Wade could've given the script a bit more depth and discovery into these characters and done a little more with the formula, this could have really been something special. The cast does what it can, but inevitably, a good cast can only take a movie so far. Still, it's worth seeing just for Cusack turn towards the dark side and Spader as a yuppie with heart.
Oh, well.
by Dane Youssef
danessf@yahoo.com
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Movie Review: Huh? What? Is this a scandal?
Summary: 3 Stars
This is supposed to be a political movie about two friends who take different paths and how this affects them. Playing against type, John Cusack is the amoral schemer who starts out lying about his family (he claims to be rich when he's actually working class) and then graduates to letting air out of tires in order to "rescue" senators. James Spader gets to be boring. Sadly the corruption never reaches much above the level of favors and leaked stories concerning Cusack's father-in-law's alzheimers.
This makes for a tedious little morality tale as self-righteous James Spader watches as Cusack steals his girlfriend, manipulates people and finally wins for senate. We don't exactly know his positions on any issues or why he wants to be in public office in the first place. All we know is that he's idealistic enough to mouth off to a senator at the beginning and then getting money from skeezy dudes on yachts in the middle. There's some case where Spader is trying to entrap him, but I don't get it.
There are so many shots of Spader and Cusack looking at each other with an 80s movie saxophone playing that you would be forgiven for thinking that this is a gay romance movie.
The real problem with this movie is the lack of historical perspective. We don't get why anyone wants to vote for Cusack beyond the fact that he might remind them of Lloyd Dobler. Nor do we see why it's a big deal that he's taking kickbacks. This movie was made shortly after the Reagan Revolution complete with Iran-Contra and a very pro-business platform. After this film came out, Bill Clinton would all but brag about his scandals. Yet these fairly tame scandals bring down Cusack and he is supposedly doomed? Hardly. In New York, Charles Rangel just won by a landslide despite being under investigation for such a wealth of malfeasance that one of the first orders of business was to publicly censure him in the House. Over twenty years of flagrant law breaking and he gets a slap on the wrist. Yet Cusack has some unethical meetings with sleazy guys and his career is over?
Not likely.
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