The Big Easy

A hotshot New Orleans detective named Remy (Dennis Quaid (Undercover Blues)) falls for the District Attorney, Anne (Ellen Barkin (The Fan)), but Remy isn’t all that he appears to be.  He’s a dirty cop that takes a couple of bills on the side plus he does some other abuse of power type shit like running red lights and parking in handicapped spots.  Can he keep the corruption going while wooing the D.A.?  Well, sorta.

I’m gonna make this short and sweet.  Remy is a dick of a slimeball and I don’t get what we or Anne are supposed to see in this guy.  They do play up the he’s-the-best-damn-cop-there-is angle but that isn’t enough.  He can’t get out of his own way.  For instance, when Remy goes on trial for being caught on tape almost accepting a bribe he has the incriminating video destroyed through a series of illegal actions.  I think this was supposed to come off as clever but it only makes this character seem like more of a jerk.

Maybe the filmmakers intended Remy to be more of a cop-that-plays-by-his-own-rules.  The problem is he’s just doing stupid illegal shit and not being a badass.  The most notable un-badass thing about him is the way he talks.  I guess Quaid was going for a Louisiana accent but he sounds more like someone who’s making fun of the way Louisianans talk.  It’s distracting how put on it sounds.  You throw in a jerry curl and a tacky suit and you got one annoying sonuvabitch.

Oh, and in the beginning every other line he says is “this is New Orleans, the Big Easy!”  This isn’t only to remind Anne of where she is every two minutes but it’s also Remy’s excuse for all of the unsavory stuff that he does.  So this picture plays up the weird seedy part of New Orleans which…seems to be the case for almost every movie set there.  Guys, what the fuck is up with the Big Easy?  And what the hell does “the Big Easy” mean?  The town is big, both physically and metaphorically in terms of personality and culture.  I get that part.  But “easy”?  I got nothin’ for that one fellas.

Anyway, Anne dislikes Remy at first for obvious reasons (he’s sort of an asshole) but eventually she gets into his zydeco groove.  Well, that is until she finds out he’s a dirty fucking cop and then has to take him to court on behalf of the government.  But in typical fashion she falls for him all over again by the end.  That’s pretty dumb.  Remy is not a good person exactly.  Sure, he ultimately sees the errors of his ways but only because he got busted and not because he came to the realization that what he was doing was wrong.

This film relies more on poorly constructed thrills than on sex so this wasn’t the steamy affair I was hoping for based on the cover.  It’s a fairly bad picture really that’s unfocused and lame.  The ending is extremely rushed with a weak showdown too.  This is one of the worst New Orleans based films I’ve seen (the best might be Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans).

But a lot of critics liked this movie apparently and I guess it did pretty well at the box office.  Ten years later they even made a TV show out of it using the same title and premise.  I don’t get it guys.  I wouldn’t recommend seeing this.

I'll tell you what though, this is a helluva trailer.  Much better than the actual film.

Sex Scenes: One.  It’s a little awkward because Anne doesn’t feel comfortable but Remy insists.  Really it almost isn’t a sex scene because the trepidation on Anne’s part leads to them actually having sex for only a brief moment before Remy gets called away to check out a murder.

After Sex Scenes: Two.  One is from the sex scene but there’s another one in there too.

Strange Cameos: John Goodman (King Ralph) plays a cop that’s barely in the movie but he eventually ends up having a huge fucking impact on the story out of nowhere.

Gailard Sartain has a brief appearance as a Cajun chef.  He might be best known for his role as Chuck in the Ernest movies.

Oddly enough another guy from an Ernest movie (Saves Christmas) is in this and that’s Robert Lesser.  He’s been in a bunch of big films (Die Hard, 2010, Godzilla (1998)) but always in minor roles.

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