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Colors (film)

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This article is about the 1988 American film. For the 2009 Malayalam film, see Colours (film).
Colors
Original film poster
Directed byDennis Hopper
Screenplay byMichael Schiffer
Story byRichard Di Lello
Michael Schiffer
Produced byRobert H. Solo
Starring
CinematographyHaskell Wexler
Edited byRobert Estrin
Music byHerbie Hancock
Distributed byOrion 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.

Plot

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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 Felipe gets caught by Hodges. The Bloods have a funeral for a deceased Robert Craig until the Crips open fire at a church, Hodges and McGavin chases after The Crips until their car flips over explodes killing them.

At the 21st Street Gang hangout to walk away from the gang life 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 pick up Louisa and drives her to his house to have sex in his bedroom.

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 people, such as attacking a graffiti artist by spraying his eyes with the paint can. A drug dealer named T gives the drugs to the young kids before McGavin and Hodges arrives, McGavin punches him in the face on the street before putting him inside the car, At the police station, Hodges gets on McGavin about his wrongful actions against people. 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.

McGavin has a short-lived romance with a waitress named Louisa who, like the offended Hodges, feels the weight of the Pac-Man persona. 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.

CRASH raids the house and arrest Oso, He tells the sheriff about the drug dealers including Hi Top, Hodges and McGavin see Hi Top and He hops on a motorcycle,They chase after him and He crashes through a restaurant window and he gets caught by Hodges and McGavin. McGavin apologizes about his wrongful actions to Hodges and talks about a new police partner. In jail, Hi Top gets beaten up by the jail inmates and The sheriff questions him about the murder of Robert Craig.

Hodges,McGavin and the LAPD spot a dark blue van that used in the 187 murder of Robert Craig and They arrest and question two black males about the van and Rocket's girlfriend.

The police were searching for Rocket (the leader of the Crips gang) in connection with the murder of a Bloods gang member named Robert Craig. They raided the house of Rockets girlfriend and Officer Baines killed a Crips gang member (Killa Bee), who they had mistaken for Rocket,as he reached for his pants. The gang members mistakenly believe McGavin did the shooting and put a hit out on him. LAPD questions Officer Baines over the shooting and killing of the gang member.

The 21st Street Gang, led by a criminal named Frog, attempts to negotiate a peace similar to Hodges and steer clear of the melee. To protect his partner, Hodges unwittingly exposes Frog as his source on the Crips leader Rocket's scheme to kill McGavin. The 21st Street Gang and Louisa are having a party at their house, Rocket and The Crips do a drive by shooting on the gang, 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 by saying "look at me Pac-Man" but McGavin leaves the room. The 21st Street Gang retaliates against Rocket and The Crips, They all get shot and killed. Each group attempts to right the wrongs against their respective crews as police strive to prevent the hit and stand their authority over the fall out.

In the end, CRASH moves in on the would-be last crew standing—the 21st Street Gang. While arresting Frog, Hodges is fatally wounded by a 21st Street Gang gunman, nicknamed "Bird", trying to do the hit on McGavin but shoots Hodges instead, CRASH shoots and kills Bird. With medics en route, McGavin comforts Hodges and breaks down with regret as Hodges falls into delirium and 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 as the pair drive on and continue their patrol.

Cast

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Production

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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

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Main article: Colors (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

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Box office

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

Critical reception

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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]

Legacy

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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.[14]

See also

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References

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  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. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "How the US Exported a Bloods and Crips Gang War to Belize". YouTube. July 15, 2021.
[edit]
  • Colors at IMDb
  • ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› Colors at AllMovie
  • Colors at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
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