SummarySet in the East L.A. barrio, Colors stars Sean Penn and Robert Duvall as very different cops, both in age and temperment, hand picked for the city's anti-gang campaign. As partners, they daily drive their unmarked car through the warring Los Angeles neighborhoods. Their simple code of endurance: Keep peace in the streets at any price! [MGM]
Directed By:Dennis Hopper
Written By:Michael Schiffer, Richard Di Lello
Colors
Metascore
Generally Favorable
66
User score
Generally Favorable
6.3
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
67% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
27% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
7% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
90
A solidly crafted depiction of some current big-city horrors and succeeds largely because of the Robert Duvall-Sean Penn teaming as frontline cops.
80
But conventional though the patterns are, the dialogue, in black and Latino lingo, is topically hot and is heated further by contemporary street naturalism, which in fact is less "natural" than consciously theatrical; so the familiarity of the story is disguised by the crackle of the production. [16 May 1988]
75
There's hardly an original shot in the picture, and the screenplay ignores all opportunities to explore the patterns of poverty and racism that contribute to mob behavior. [22 Apr 1988]
75
The only scene that takes a stab at saying something about the root causes of the violence is the weakest. At a poorly attended community meeting called by the police to urge residents to speak up when they witness a crime, one black Vietnam veteran angrily mentions the lack of jobs. [15 Apr 1988]
63
At 120 minutes, Colors is one of the longest cop dramas in movie history, and all the clichés are packed into the second hour. It fades in the stretch - and so may too many moviegoers. [15 Apr 1988]
50
Along with other cast members, Penn takes ages registering his stares and scowls, until the movie is finally not about gangs but about actors' attitudes. Dressed up in '80s street slang, this is a '60s exercise in Method excess. [18 Apr 1988]
30
Without complexity to its characters, with little balance and without a hint of the personal, family or community issues involved, Colors becomes a movie that never has to ask "Why?"--a vivid, noisy shell of a film filled with eager young actors rattling along on the surface of a lethally important subject. [15 Apr 1988]
User score
Generally Favorable
60% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
25% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
15% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Mar 31, 2019
5
The Dennis Hopper directorial effort "Colors" takes us into the textured landscape that is 1980's Los Angeles, namely through the lens of a pair of police officers, played by Robert Duvall and Sean Penn. While both actors do a fair job playing off one another onscreen (I mean, there's three Oscars between the two of them. What'd I expect?), it all feels a bit too muted for me to care. This, I assume, comes more from the writing than the performances at hand, as the overly subtle character work is not the only problem I had with this narrative. There's a great amount of effort placed into showcasing the horror that gang violence can cause, but very little nuance lent towards delving into why these things come about in the first place. The "gangbanger" characters, as characterized in the film, are simply absolute. They kind of just exist. Yes, some of them exhibit remorse and even a bit of personality now and then, but beyond that I feel this movie has more to say about the police force than anything involving why gangs do what they do/how they come about. And even with the police there's not that much for the movie to say. The narrative between the Duvall and Penn characters is so predictable and cliche-ridden that you end up losing interest somewhere around halfway through things. "Colors" may have been indelible and interesting for its time, but I'm not sure it's much else than that.
Aug 27, 2018
5
Colors is a very dated film that hasn't aged well at all. There are some good performances by Sean Penn and Robert Duvall but the script is very melodramatic, and really boils down the gang conflicts without looking at any of the deeper meanings behind the rise of gangs and what has to happen in a neighborhood for kids to join a gang. It's really just an average movie when you boil it down.
