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Amazon.co.uk Review
What The Cotton Club lacks is cohesion. Written by Coppola and novelist William Kennedy (then enjoying the peak of his critical acclaim), the film struggles to exceed the narrative scope of The Godfather, but its multiple early-'30s plotlines fail to form any strong connective tissue. It's three (or four) movies in one, with cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere, playing his own jazzy solos) drifting from one story to the next--loving a young, ambitious vamp (Diane Lane, with whom Gere shares precious little chemistry), enjoying the success of a hot-shot hoofer (Gregory Hines), and protecting his brazen brother (Coppola's then-newcomer nephew, Nicolas Cage) from the deadly temper of mob boss "Dutch" Schultz (James Remar). Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne also score big in grand supporting roles, but The Cotton Club is perhaps best appreciated for its meticulous recreation of Harlem's Cotton Club heyday, and the brilliant music (Ellington, Calloway, etc.) that brought rhythm to gangland's rat-a-tat-tat. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
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There are several narratives woven together in this film which follow the boom and bust of American fortunes around the time of the Wall Street Crash in 1929. In the Cotton Club we see the explosion of the entertainment industry, the influx of black performers (who have become fasionable due to their use in Paris), prohibition (and the attempts to side step this), corruption, murder, love, . . . and jazz! The whole film is set to a fantastic score, and has some wonderful tap routines.
The main character is a trumpet player (Richard Gere), who inadvertently becomes involved in the lives of the gangsters who rule the town he lives in. It is interesting to compare Gere's role in 'The Cotton Club' with the one in 'Chicago' - in the former he plays a relative innocent who has his strings pulled, in the latter he is doing the string pulling. This is a fine performance from his early career in a role that suits him to a tee. Aside from Gere, there are many other famous names - Nicholas Cage plays Gere's trigger happy brother, Bob Hoskins plays the top Mob Boss, and there are roles for Diane Lane, Julian Beck, and Laurence Fishburne. You can also look for an early performance by James Remar, aka the man who tames 'Samanth' from 'Sex and the City.'
I don't want to gush about the fil, or to spoil any of the major plot points as many people will not have seen this film before - don't form any opinion on the film, just watch it and see. The only 'heads-up' that I'll give is for the end of the film, as a tap routine has never been used to better effect in a film; watch out for this bit, and be impressed.
Francis Coppola's The Cotton Club is a Great Gangster film--albeit flawed, but great none the less, the story of Dixie(Richard Gere)Dwyer,... Read more
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