King Cotton

THE COTTON CLUB is epic emptiness. Considering it had a mindboggling budget, a deluge of pre-release hype complete with melodramatic creation story, and a hip-hopping nightclub as its center, one might at least expect to be entertained.

Instead, director and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola drags his audience on a fragmented, flat voyage through the JAZZ age cinematically unjazzed.

The "Cotton Club" really was a Harlem nightclub that popped up during the prohibition era. This infamous speakeasy partied socialites, mobsters and movie stars; gang wars were Hemingway's "lost generation" found themselves in the tunes of performers like Duke Ellington, Lena Horne and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

Coppola and fellow screen writers Mario Puzo and William Kennedy present a mixture of fact and fiction as they center their story on Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere), a coronet player, who becomes entangled in racketeering riff-raff after he saves the life of arch- mobster Dutch Schultz. The Dutchman hires Dyers to entertain his mistress Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), and the two, unfortunately for the Dutchman fall in love. Vera, however, sticks with the mobster because of his promise to buy her her own nightclub. Meanwhile back at the ranch. Dixie's brother Vince becomes embroiled in New York's gang wars.

To keep the plot nice and confused, Coppola has composed a parallel sub-story starring Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines) a tap dancer at the club, who also falls in love with a showgirl William's beloved. Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette Mckee), is stuck in racial limbo, because she can pass as both a white and a black woman, threatening her relationship with the Sandman.

Not too surprisingly, "The Cotton Club" rambles along these storylines and several others while consistently failing to reach any dramatic climax, development or even coherence Coppola never investigates the dynamics of the gangsters world, even though "the power" changes hands several times during the film. Coppola presents the titillating moments of mob murders, like when Dixie and Vera watch the impulsive Dutchman stab his rival Flynn with a turkey carver during dinner. The blood sprays the walls, and covers the ivory tablecloth, while drops fall from the chandelier onto Lane's porcelian cheeks. Although scenes like these have dramatic bang, they never build to anything substantitive, instead disappearing into Coppola's cinematic labyrinth.

There is no sense of continuity in the "Cotton Club"; we never know how one gang accumulates or loses it's power. Coppola introduces the Irish Jewish and Italian rackets, but the only way one can tell the mob has changed hands is by the size of gangsters noses.

The screenplay, rather than the mobster's bullet proves to be the actors worst enemy. The dialogue is reminiscent of old gangster films in the worst sense, particularly surprising coming from the man who made films like "The Godfather." Coppola and his cohorts provide almost no basis for the romantic entanglements that we are expected to believe. The Sandman falls in love with the lovely, leggy Lila Rose when he first sees her. "Will you marry me?" he asks impulsively. This one, searing sentence is the only expression of the couple's love.

The acting is uniformly remarkable, given the dramatic quicksand in which the cast is drowning. Richard Gere avoids getting by on his gooooooood looks and instead makes the most of his dramatic moments playing a good kid shocked and fascinated at the dirty dealings of the underworld. Diane Lane just the right mix of street-survivor and sensitivity, making her an inspiring and sympathetic character.

At least Coppola knows how to make use of his cast, expertly extracting each character's innate talent, choreographing their interactions with a subtle and sensitive hand.

For example, when Dixie goes to pay off his brother Vince, who is holding one of Dixie's pals for a ransom, he hands his sweaty and frantic brother the money and advises him to get out of town. Coppola captures the tension between brothers on divergent paths and their strong, steady love.

The film's only other redeeming quality is its electric musical numbers. Gregory Hines is a excellent dancer, and prolonged choreographer Michael Sonian makes use of Hine's unusual talent and presence. Chorus members wearing another costumes, move effortlessly through complex dance pieces, while instrumentalists captivate the audience with their bleary tunes.

Coppola would have been better off if he had bagged his screenplay, taken a small table at the Cotton Club, and let the magic work for itself.