It seems like in recent years many filmmakers want to depress the audience for their $20 ticket price. Powder Blue takes it one step further and tries to bore us to death at the same time.
It somehow also manages to make Jessica Biel nudity boring and depressing too.
The core plotlines follow a short timespan in the lives of four characters – the aforementioned single Mum/stripper Rose (Biel), a burly tatted ex-con with a secret named jack (Ray Liotta), a religious man with a death wish named Charlie (Forest Whitaker) and a waifish young mortuary owner named Qwerty… for some reason.
Over the course of nearly two hours all four leads manage to inch their way towards nowhere – one paralysingly dull scene at a time. It seems for every step toward the light there are two punches in the face waiting. They even decide to throw a dying kid in the mix to cheer us up.
Cameos abound with Patrick Swayze, Lisa Kudrow and Kris Kristofferson popping up to provide either momentary hope or to crush dreams – occasionally both – in an intricate series of supposedly random events that bring our four pathetic ‘heroes’ into each other’s orbit. Things I might add that would never actually happen.
Powder Blue wants to be Babel meets Storytelling meets Crash, which in my opinion is hardly lofty aspirations anyway. What results is somehow less than, but just as non-entertaining or thought provoking. In the end it’s depressing meets unlikely with a solid helping of dull for good measure.
Final Rating – 5 / 10. There’s a reason that you haven’t heard of Powder Blue, and if you have it’s because Biel gets her kit off. Let me tell you that isn’t near as inspirational as it should be either.
