A film that captures the steamy, colorful essence of New Orleans, this crime thriller tells the romantic story of a classy detective whose investigation of a gangland murder lands him in trouble with the city's new District Attorney, a woman with a rigid penchant for following the letter of the law. Despite their differences, the two manage to work together and eventually fall in love. Unfortunately all of this leads them to have to fight for their lives when their investigation into the case
and the corruption surrounding it gets them bumped up to the top of a hit man's list. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Eventually the film's suspense underpinnings take over its personal story, yet that tension Quaid and Barkin generate still holds. Soldily fine as actors they're also a great pair, like two golden athletes.
The screenplay, by Daniel Petrie Jr. and Jack Baran, has a number of funny lines and situations, but the end result looks fiddled with by people attempting to ''fix'' things.
The plot of this movie is only an excuse for its real strength: the creation of a group of characters so interesting, so complicated and so original they make a lot of other movie people look like paint-by-number characters.
There's plenty of southern comfort in this entertaining thriller. Terrific performances from Quaid and Barkin make this into an overlooked gem of 1980s Hollywood.
Much better than the average cop movie: the script bristles with wittily tough talk, while fast-pattering Quaid works up a nice double act romance-feud with Barkin (his cheeky grin is well-matched with her lopsided smile).
Like the synopsis on here says, this movie is more of a romance than a crime thriller or drama, they could have called it cops in love. I found the whole cop romance thing really boring, and the rest of the story even more boring.
The Big Easy is an 80s noir set to the colourful backdrop of New Orleans in which Assistant District Attourney Ellen Barkin is sent to investigate police corruption only to be seduced by morally dubious detective and local lothario Dennis Quaid. The biggest weakness of The Big Easy is its over reliance on the
afore-mentioned "local colour", which means that the film is wall to wall chicken bones, hillbilly music and bizarre accents (Grace Zabriskie in particular sounds like a rastafarian with special needs after a stroke). This fact combined with the workmanlike plot and gratuitous 80s pyrotechnics at the end conspire to make it feel like a made for TV pilot episode for "New Orleans Vice". What can be admired about the film however is the chemistry between the cast; Barkin's fiery girl next door paired with Quaid's believable turn as a man finally meeting a woman that makes him want to re-examine himself makes for a charming and sexy couple and the amusing squadroom antics make for a very likable set of characters. Very formulaic but it avoids the usual 80s macho excesses and is still an entertaining, if rather dated detective story.
No quotes approved yet for The Big Easy. Logged in users can submit quotes.
Submit a Quote from 'The Big Easy'
A quote can be a single line from one character or a memorable dialog between several characters. Please make your quotes accurate. Quotes will be submitted for approval by the RT staff.
Example:
Luke: Alright. I'll give it a try. Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
Top Critic
