True Blue (2001)

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

***SPOILERS*** Almost indescribable plot involving this mysterious severed hand that pops up in the duck pond at Taylor Park in Boston that belonged to a young woman, Melanie Ann Hines, who worked in the Mayor's office. Boston Homicide Detective Rembrandt Macy, Tom Berenger, is put on the case of the missing body, since the hand was already in police custody, together with his super super cool and sexy partner Detective Beck, Pamela Gidley, by their boss Monty, Barry Newman, to solve this very baffling murder case.Macy who's already on the outs with his superiors in the Boston Police Department because of his my way or the highway attitude gets even more resented by them in him shacking up with the dead and missing handless women's roommate Nikkie Calderon, Louri Heuring, who if its possible is even sexier and a hell of a lot hotter then his partner Detective Beck! In that Nikki is more then willing to take her clothes off and put out for the happily surprised and eager to jump into action Detective Rembrandt Macy unlike his partner Detective Beck who despite her good looks is about as cold as the iceberg that sank the Titanic: Why is it that guys like Macy have all the luck!The film soon get a bit over our heads with all the subplots thrown into it that makes it look like it, or the movie screenwriters, is having trouble in making up its mind in what to do to make it more understandable to those of us watching it or just how to end it as soon as possible before it gets even more ridicules then it already is. There's the usual double triple and even quadruple crosses you would expect in a tangled detective film like "True Blue" but it doesn't just end at that. Detective Macy's actions are so over the top that you start to wounder if he's not on some kind of hallucinogenic drug or weed that he's secretly smoking or drinking besides the gallons and packs of booze and cigarettes he consumes in the movie.Macy despite his bumbling does in fact track down just who's responsible for all the mess he and the audience finds themselves in but goes one step higher in putting his fat head on the chopping block in confronting the person whom he feels murdered or knows who murdered Melenia Ann Hines. Macy does that by confronting the suspected killer on his own turf, Boston's Chinatown, with a two million dollar payoff in order for Macy to keep his mouth shut about him to the Boston Police.****SPOILERS*** Just when you and Macy thought that you knew who Melanie's killer is in pops the surprise of all surprises, in a movie filled with surprises, to who not only did in poor dead and handless Melanie but almost everyone else in the movie's cast! And is now planning to do in both Macy & Nikki in order to make it, in wiping the slate or cast clean, a full house! Macy who by now realizes that he's been suckered into all this insanity, the film "True Blue", still has an ace up his sleeve even when he's shot and left for dead by one of the schemers he trusted, against his better judgment, in! The old mud stuffed up the gun barrel trick that Macy's potential killer fell for lock stock & barrel!P.S Check out movie stuntman Oscar Hsu in one of his rare acting appearances as a bullet riddled corpse lying on a slab at the Boston City Morgue!

"True Blue", just another Berenger B-flick, is a noir wannabe in which he plays a homicide detective with a past who's trying to get to the bottom of a murder mystery while trying to avoid the bottom of a blond tart involved with the case. This budget conscious flick fleshes out only half the characters in its convoluted and messy plot, relegating the other half to the backstory or endless conversation about the goings-on of a bunch of bad guys we don't get to see. "True Blue" is the kind of flick you might want to watch on late night tv when your choices are limited to vampires and old movies. (C)

A very well done movie with a great plot and story. Thrilling and good entertainment :) Tom Berenger is a great actor but have delivered a lot of bad movies lately but this one puts him back up there for sure. Deserves an 8 in my book.

Anyone familiar with the works of writer/director J.S. Cardone will doubtless know that the man never seems to rest on his laurels for long, having filmed this cop thriller hot on the heels of his vampire yarn "The Forsaken".Now herein lies the question, director Cardone is prolific yes, dabbling in a variety of genres, now aside from gigs like "Shadowzone" "The Slayer" and "Crash And Burn" written or directed by Cardone down through the last two decades, the vast majority of the man's work has mainly consisted of dark and brooding thrillers, whereby deep beneath the surface of the story, lurks many a festering heart.Such is the case with "True Blue" starring Tom Berenger as Detective Rembrandt "Rem" Macy another one of those hard drinking,chain smoking cops on the edge. Now when i first looked at the cover for this movie, i thought to myself, where is Tom Berenger, Looking at the front of the cover you'll find a cosmetically reconstructed Tom looking kinda like Huckleberry Hound, when you flip over to read the synopsis, you catch sight of the real Mr Berenger, gone to pot and a looking like both "Platoon" and "Someone To Watch Over Me" had never hapened!If you were to say that this was thriller, reading the front and back of the video/dvd cover would indeed make you believe so. However this is just another steak dinner swimming around in Tom's gut.No harm no fowl to anybody involved in this movie, as i like anyone, loves a good yarn, but Cardone has not done us any favours here by parading an endless dislay of situations wrapped up in a scenario that could've popped up in anything from Homicide to NYPD Blue.An Ironic twist kicking around in this movie, is the lead character's name, unlike his famous other, Rem Macy is most definitely no oil painting, which was also mirrored in his living habits. I guess in hindsight the casting of Berenger was a stroke of genius, as he was looking in need of the work.Watch this movie and remember the scene in "Platoon" when Berenger's character and Willem Dafoe's square off in the vietnamese village, you wonder could Dafoe maybe sometime pay Berenger a visit and slap some sense into him, and perhaps be a bit more choosy about his next role, which judging by his character's chain smoking habit, could be the next advert warning upon the perils of killing your lungs!But hey this was only a movie, take it or leave it, until J.S. Cardone conjurs up his next slice of over ripe hokum.