I'm going to quote my lovely online buddy Shae with her opinion of what I could expect from Powder Blue: "Even Biel's breasts won't help it." No kidding. It takes a truly putrid film where two of the most perfect headlights in Hollywood don't even merit my full attention, but by the time it was time for her to flash 'em I had long since lost interest.
Powder Blue is one of those annoying indie films still stuck on rehashing the old Crash/Amores Perros model of interlocking loosely connected stories with one central theme. The theme this time around is loneliness and despair. Apparently they felt the need to make the viewer despair, also. Misery loves company, I guess. It features a handful of marginal talents sleepwalking their way through poorly defined roles with that indie film twist. Jessica Biel plays a lonely, love starved stripper. And if that wasn't indie enough for you, her son happens to be in a coma. Forest Whittaker is a suicidal ex-priest. He forms an unusual relationship with both a lonely waitress played by a rapidly aging Lisa Kudrow, and a transvestite prostitute. Ray Liotta is a mafia hitman who just got out of jail after 25 years. He just happens to be dying of cancer. Fun stuff, huh? Well try this on for size: The other main character is a friggin' mortician. Who's in debt. For Pete's sake, a dog even gets run over in this dreary thing.
Written and directed by Timothy Lin Bui, who previously teamed up with Whittaker on the overly dramatic and bland Green Dragon, Powder Blue aspires to be deeper than it actually is. Even though I despise Crash now, I can appreciate the earnestness with which it covers it's main theme. I got the idea as I was watching Biel attempt to seduce a bloated and haggard looking Liotta that this film has no idea where it wants to go. None of the relationships that are formed go anywhere interesting. Characters appear and then are forgotten for long stretches of time, only to suddenly re-emerge and we are expected to care. Even though there are only a handful of characters to deal with, it seems as if the writer had trouble managing. He would've been better served focusing solely on Biel's character and her multitude of issues. It might not have made for a much better film, but atleast it would've been more focused.
Turns out Shae was right. Biel's breasts couldn't save it, but I will admit that I rewound a couple of those scenes back once or twice. That's gotta count for something I guess.
3/10
Next on The Queue: 2007's Mongol
