The Big Easy

Dennis Quaid (whom I have liked ever since “Breaking Away”) keeps getting better, and Ellen Barkin is quite sexy in this atmospheric crime melodrama in which "whodunit" takes a backseat to character and setting. The mystery itself is fairly routine. The real star of the show is the city of New Orleans ("The Big Easy") where everything is just a little skewed, including the ethics of the police, including Remy McSwain (Quaid). The fireworks when he runs up against the straightshooter D.A. played by Barkin are worth the price of admission, and the way they influence each other makes this more of a human story than anything else. I've never been to New Orleans, but the way its is presented here is just as I imagine it would be, and if it's not, then there should be someplace on earth that is just like this. They get the atmosphere, the attitude, the accent. My favorite Big-Easy-ism is the greeting people use, as in: "Hey Remy, where you at?" The movie asks you in for a beer and some blackened redfish, and you can't beat that.