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Movie Reviews -
Drama and Suspense
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Written by Kevin Meehan
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009 05:41 AM |
 When Blue Velvet was released on laserdisc it was refereed to as “the most talked about film of the decade.” That decade was, of course, the 80’s: a time when laserdiscs were still relevant. And although that particular form of media is no longer relevant this film still kind of is. I wouldn’t say it’s the “most talked about” anymore and while it’s good, it is probably not worthy of being the most talked about anyways.
The main action of Blue Velvet begins when Jeffrey Beaumont finds a severed human ear in a field on the outskirts of the small, logging town in which he lives. He takes the ear to a local detective but can’t seem to let the investigation go at that despite the detective telling him to.
Fortunately for Jeffrey the detective has a young, attractive daughter named Susan – played by Laura Dern whose appearance reminds me of a less skanky Paris Hilton for some reason – who tells Jeffrey some information about the case that she overheard. This leads to building sexual tension between the two throughout the film and also to Jeffrey doing some detective work of his own.
Jeffrey’s detective work leads him to the apartment of lounge singer Dorothy Valance who, while hiding in her closet, Jeffrey finds out has had her husband and child kidnapped by a man named Frank Booth – played by the typically crazy-ass Dennis Hopper (see: Apocalypse Now, Ameritrade commercials, etc.) – who is prone to inhaling some sort of gaseous substance that seems to make him say the f-word a whole lot and hit women.
Jeffrey is naturally curious about this Frank character so he follows him home one day and takes some surveillance photos of Frank and his associates, the mysterious “yellow man” and “well-dressed man” who we discover are involved in drugs and murder among, I’m sure, other bad things. While Jeffrey is trying to figure this all out he continually visits the apartment of Valence who is pretty damn crazy in her own right.
On one unfortunate trip Jeffery runs into Frank while he’s leaving and Frank forces him to go on a “joyride” that ends with Jeffrey having the crap beat out of him and being left in the countryside. Jeffrey makes his way back and decides to finally tell the police what he knows. Everything seems to be going well after that as Jeffrey goes on a date with Susan and life starts to get back to normal until a completely naked Valence shows up at the end of the date in an unprecedented display of cock-blockery.
She is obviously in need of help so she’s taken to the hospital while Jeffrey goes to her apartment, telling Susan in the meantime to call her detective father. At Valance’s apartment Jeffrey finds the Yellow Man and Dorothy’s husband dead. Frank soon arrives dressed as the Well Dressed Man and is shot by Jeffrey just before Susan and the detective arrive. Everything ends happily from there, believe it or not, as the film ends with a lovely lunch shared by Jeffrey, Susan and their families.
I deal this film a “queen.” As I mentioned earlier, it’s worthy of some talk but I certainly wouldn’t waste a ton of breath on it. Clocking in at just about two hours, I can’t say Blue Velvet was too long, but it definitely seemed that way at times. By the end of the movie the plot had grown complex enough to be entertaining but the first hour or so was pretty slow going. Dennis Hopper’s trademark insanity kept me slightly amused until the real action got going and once it did get going I enjoyed the movie much more. I wouldn’t recommend this film to everybody but if you are a big fan of movies in general it’s certainly worth a watch.
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