One of these days, I’m going to pull together a feature about the forgotten films of the Brat Pack, and when I do, you can count on “Blue City” meriting inclusion. It’s not that the flick necessarily deserves rediscovery, but it’s definitely an interesting curiosity of the mid-1980s, if only because of the parties involved: it stars Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, David Caruso, Scott Wilson, and Paul Winfield (Best Actor Oscar nominee for 1972’s “Sounder”), features a soundtrack by Ry Cooder, is based on a novel by Ross MacDonald, and features a script that was co-written by Lukas Heller (“The Dirty Dozen,” “Too Late the Hero,” “Monte Walsh”) and Walter Hill (“The Getaway,” “The Warriors,” “48 Hours”). Nelson stretches his acting range by playing a bad boy who returns home after a five-year absence to find that his father – the town’s mayor – has been murdered. The description on the back of the DVD box, which refers to Nelson as “a wisecracking hero who isn’t afraid to bust a few heads to get the information he needs,” reveals that this was just one of the many “Beverly Hills Cop” rip-offs which were hitting theaters at the time, and for all of the talent involved, it’s still no more than an average action film, with the biggest laugh coming not from Nelson’s purported wisecracks but, rather, from the idea that someone with Sheedy’s figure could be hired as a dancer at the local strip club…especially when she’s not even that great a dancer!
