| Phoenix | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Danny Cannon |
| Produced by | Victoria Nevinny Tracie Graham Rice |
| Written by | Eddie Richey |
| Starring | Ray Liotta Anjelica Huston Anthony LaPaglia Daniel Baldwin Jeremy Piven Tom Noonan Xander Berkely Giancarlo Esposito Brittany Murphy Giovanni Ribisi |
| Music by | Graeme Revell |
| Cinematography | James L. Carter |
| Editing by | Zach Staenberg |
| Distributed by | Trimark Pictures Lakeshore Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | September 4, 1998 |
| Running time | 113 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Phoenix is a 1998 American crime film directed by Briton Danny Cannon.
Contents |
Unlike many of his Phoenix police detective partners, Harry Collins is a good cop and, despite his very idiosyncratic value system, a decent man. However his compulsive gambling has got him heavily in debt to a gangster bookie. Refusing to Welsh on a bet, and with only 48 hours to pay his debt, Harry is offered a deal: murder Joey, a young prisoner who may provide the police with information about the bookie, and the debt will be written off. Harry can not contemplate such action and prefers to offer Joey some potentially life-saving advice: “You never rat out anyone… It doesn't pay in the long run”.
When Harry's corrupt partner Mike finds out his predicament he volunteers to kill the bookie but Harry dismisses the offer saying he will “never betray a friend”. Instead, Harry comes up with a plan to rob Louie the loan shark, who stashes a large amount of money in the safe in his strip club. To pull this off Harry needs the help of Mike and two other corrupt and brutal cops, James and Fred, busily engaged in moonlighting for Louie.
A budding relationship with Leila, his understanding barmaid, promises Harry a new beginning a long way from Phoenix after he completes the hold up.
All does not go according to plan.
Lawrence Van Gelder, writing in The New York Times, argued that “character and conversation outweigh momentum and suspense in Phoenix but a gifted cast, led by Ray Liotta, who was a co-producer of this story of corrupt police detectives in Arizona, splashes alluring color across its familiar noir”.[1]
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times described the film as “a terrific neo-noir”. The writer, director “and a gifted cast and crew bring to their genre piece a surprising freshness”. Thomas praises cinematographer James L. Carter who gave Phoenix “a classic shadowy noir look even though the film is in color”. However, the film was “not merely a matter of shrewd craftsmanship but a suddenly widening and deepening moral perspective that is expressed through Liotta's beautifully sustained, endlessly revealing portrayal of a Phoenix policeman, undone by compulsive gambling, yet clinging to his own code of honor”. Moreover, in Anjelica Huston, the film-makers came up with “the definitive noir woman for their leading lady" someone "who knows she can communicate world-weariness with a shrug or a lifted eyebrow and doesn't push it”.[2]
Karl Williams, writing for Allmovie, describes Phoenix as a “noir crime drama set in Arizona and updated for post-modern sensibilities is similar in tone to other hip B-movie homages such as Bad Lieutenant (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and the previous year's award winning L.A. Confidential (1997)”.
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