Coen brothers fans will recognize this device from The Big Lebowski, where it heightens the absurdity of the hero’s situation rather than his humanity, as it does here. Once in a while you get a story in which a regular guy (or gal) gets drawn into a mess and has to untangle it and save the day, which is what happens here. There are other options: I’m partial to the amateur sleuth, even though that device has more or less gone out of fashion or you can tell the story from the point of view of the criminal, but that takes away the most obvious locus for suspense since we already know whodunit. The easiest route is to make him or her a cop or a private investigator. One of the eternal problems of the detective story is how to account for your protagonist’s involvement in whatever shady dealings are about to unfold. Easy gets a job offer from a shady character (Tom Sizemore) that’s too good to pass up, even though he knows it’s trouble. It pays loving homage to its predecessors but doesn’t feel derivative or tired.ĭenzel Washington plays Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, a recent WWII vet who finds himself out of work and with a mortgage to pay. Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) is a great example of a genre I’m already a sucker for: detective stories.
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