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Colors Play Trailer

Colors (1988)

tomatometer

86

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 1

No consensus yet.

audience

67

liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 27,656

My Rating

Movie Info

Colors stars Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as partners on the LAPD's gang crime division. Duvall had hoped to spend more time with his family, but he's pulled back into active service because of a step-up in gang activity. He makes no secret of his contempt for his novice partner Penn, but eventually comes to rely on the younger man as a valuable street contact. The central crisis is the battle for supremacy between the "Crips" and the "Bloods", with every effort to call a truce stymied by the

R,

Drama, Action & Adventure

Oct 2, 2001

Orion Home Video

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Colors Trailer & Photos

Critic Reviews for Colors

All Critics (28) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (5) | DVD (4)

Colors is a solidly crafted depiction of some current big-city horrors and succeeds largely because of the Robert Duvall-Sean Penn teaming as frontline cops. They're terrific together as members of the gang crime division of the LAPD.

March 26, 2009 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety Staff
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Never as eccentric as The Last Movie or Out of the Blue, Colors nevertheless makes most other cop movies look formulary by comparison.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Though its story has the makings of standard stuff, and is sometimes sketchily told, nothing about 'Colors is ordinary.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times
Janet Maslin
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's an exhilarating sparring match between Duvall's workmanlike fine-tuning and Penn's raw energy.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's great pleasure in watching these two actors work. And Hopper, a great actor himself, knows what they need to thrive.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Hal Hinson
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Colors is a special movie -- not just a police thriller, but a movie that has researched gangs and given some thought to what it wants to say about them.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Colors has a tentative, ambivalent feel to it--as if Hopper merely considered himself a hired gun who should avoid imposing too personal a vision on the material.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Dennis Hopper's striking, controversial film was one of the first to attempt to get under the skin of LA gang culture, inspiring the many 'hood' films that proliferated in the early 1990s.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

Retrata a violência do submundo das gangues de maneira crua e realista, preocupando-se mais em ilustrar a brutalidade daquele universo do que propriamente em desenvolver uma trama (o que é um bônus).

May 1, 2006
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena

What is there to write about a lacklustre gang-related film that wants to be more than it amounts to?

May 13, 2005 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide
Jon Lap
Apollo Guide

gritty and gripping

April 18, 2005
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

A gritty and depressing portrait of gang warfafre in Los Angeles as an intractable urban problem.

July 10, 2003 Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice
View all critic reviews (28)

Audience Reviews for Colors

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A fairly decent film but a little contrived at times. Oh, and the word ?Color? should have a U in it!! Expected more from Hopper though!
September 24, 2009
SirPant
Anthony Lawrie

Super Reviewer

Good cop film, nothing special about the film if you watch it now, back then it had more of an impact. Good acting and screenplay.
March 6, 2008
Chiefilms
Lenny Muggsy

Super Reviewer

Colors Quotes

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    1. Bob Hodges: [to his new partner] There's two bulls standing on top of a mountain. The younger one says to the older one: 'Hey pop, let's say we run down there and fuck one of them cows'. The older one says: 'No son. Lets walk down and fuck 'em all'.
    – Submitted by Kitty S (11 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Colors (1998) (DE)
  • Colors (1998) (UK)
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