Good cop, bad cop
Ron Shelton's powerfully unsettling Dark Blue is about the coming apart of a Los Angeles cop. Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) is about to make lieutenant, and he is deeply entrenched in the LAPD's boys' club network. But his blustery macho armor encases the memory of his murder of an innocent suspect. He's never forgiven himself for it, and the guilt is eating away at him; he's become a mass of self-loathing (and an alcoholic).
That history provides his subterranean motive, hidden even from himself, for putting his novice partner, Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), through the same ordeal. He pushes Bobby to shoot a man Perry has framed to cover up the crimes of two hoodlums who are in the pay of Perry's boss, police chief Jack Van Meter (Brendon Gleeson).
But Bobby is still within salvation's reach. He's just begun an affair with Beth Williamson (Michael Michele), a good cop who's allied with the crusading would-be reformer Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames). Beth and Holland are outside the rotten heart of the force, and with good reason: both are black. It's 1991. John Ayers's script (based on a story by novelist James Ellroy) is framed by the Rodney King trial and the L.A. riots.
