Except for the amusing banter between Fred Gwynne and Bob Hoskins, the Caucasian characters in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Cotton Club" just get in the way. The will-they-won't-they romance between Richard Gere and Diane Lane doesn't mean a thing to us; we don't care if they end up with each other or not.
The scenes inside the club are really exciting, though. You never want to leave. Gregory Hines' dancing is the kind you could watch for hours. But the best scene in "Cotton Club" is when the gorgeous Lonette McKee takes the stage to sing a stunning version of "Ill Wind." She is as beautiful as young Lena Horne, a feast for the eyes and ears. The director was wise not to place this number too early in the film because the movie never recovers afterward. Not that there was a lot to recover.
Nick Cage is in there somewhere, so is Laurence Fishburne. Joe Dallisandro makes a cameo at the end as a gangster. All he does is sit there, but he was still handsome then and eye-candy was just about all the white leads offer in "Cotton Club."
One of these days a director is going to make a movie about the New York City of the twenties or early thirties that will have vitality and wit, peopled with the legendary theatrical characters of that era (Tallulah, Robert Benchley, the Barrymores for example). Not like the one from Alan Rudolph about Dorothy Parker; Jennifer Jason Leigh and Campbell Scott tried hard to save that one but the director was all over the place as usual doing his poor Robert Altman impression.
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