Kansas City
by Robert Altman
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Product details
Actor: Dermot Mulroney, Harry Belafonte, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Murphy, Miranda RichardsonDirector: Robert Altman
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 115 minutes
Release Date: 1997-09-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: New Line Home Video
Studio: New Line Home Video
VHS Movie Reviews of Kansas City
Movie Review: Saxophone Players
Summary: 4 Stars
The music in this movie is great! Joshua Redman tears it up with his great old/new style of playing the saxophone!!
Doug Earley
Movie Review: Don't waste your time
Summary: 2 Stars
If you're looking for drama, suspense or anything approaching a real plot, look elsewhere. Not only is the ending predictable, but you'll have to wait through a very long and boring movie to see it. Atmosphere is about all you'll get. Depending on your opinion of jazz or what passes for it in this movie, you may be in for further disappointment. We rented it on line through U-Verse and I'm going to ask for a refund. Belafonte was the only one who was convincing and that's because he wasn't acting.Movie Review: The Battle Of Kansas City Jazz Or The Deception Of Beauty
Summary: 5 Stars
When one listens to the gorgeous music of Lester Young, Charlie Parker(I think he was "shown" in a scene as well) and Coleman Hawkins and William Count Basie,a jazz fan is left with a sense of wonder what must have gone down at KC in those days...Now we have a great depiction of the music and what life might have been like with great music revisited and performed by these "new giants of jazz" recreating the high swinging good time sense of euphoria sweeping those magical tunes..
Yet, at the same time, music lovers see the battle going on between the somewhat bluesier, aggressive playing of the giant Coleman Hawkins contrasted clearly with his major rival Lester Young, the more sweeter melancholy player..These 2 contrasting visions play-out throughout the entire movie not only as a backdrop as a soundtrack but a portrayal of the contradictory lives played by it's characters.
There is no difference between the Downtown KC of crime, brothels and booze(opium and cocaine as well) with it's underworld in contrast to the Americana of the Uptown KC with it's quaint Democratic lifestyle untouched by the jazz going down at the Hey-Hey Club...ultimately leading to murder from all sides.
This is a powerful message and why the movie scores big besides the wonderful music and the 2 Cd's spurned out which are equally impressive.
The moral equivalency of these 2 worlds makes this movie a great one.
Movie Review: Atmosphere and little else.
Summary: 2 Stars
Even the mighty have their moments when they stumble and KANSAS CITY is one of those moments for maverick director Robert Altman. There's little more than atmosphere in this film; the period-recreation of 1935-ish Kansas City Missouri, the great jazz throughout every frame and a bravura performance by Harry Belefonte as a gambler/crime kingpin named "Seldom Seen" don't mask the fact that the plot's thinner than newspaper and that every other actor save Belefonte is chewing the scenery and burping after every chew. On the surface, this movie's approach isn't much different from Altman's others--there's constant activity, so much that it's initially disorienting to try and figure out all of the threads of the story, but in many of his films (NASHVILLE, MASH and GOSFORD PARK, for instance), those threads gradually come together into a whole. It never happens in KANSAS CITY. The threads stay threads and you're left with a jumble, albiet a jumble with a great score.Movie Review: Might Have The Best Ending Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
Bottom line, whether you love or hate "Kansas City" will depend on your reaction to Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance. Leigh's character Blondie anchors the story as a desperate wife trying to save her husband from the gangsters he tried to rob. Leigh looks great in this role, she is fit and trim which makes her face that much cuter. The contrast between her almost angelic appearance and her tough persona is intentional because the toughness is an affectation, qualities she has adopted because she loves her husband and they are a turn-on for him.
Her's is the key performance of the film, the twist is her emulation of Kansas City native Jean Harlow ("The Public Enemy" and "Girl from Missoui"). Watch Harlow in "Red Headed Woman" to see the incredible physical resemblance between these two short actresses. Personally I found it touching, humorous, and inspirational. But it is almost a caricature and many are put off by this tiny woman talking so tough.
As in "Nashville", there are great songs (but jazz rather than country) throughout the film. It is important to realize that "Blondie's" behavior is intended to mirror the "cutting contests" between the jazz musicians on-stage at the club. Just as the musicians borrow from one another and weave each others stuff into what they are improvising, "Blondie" borrows from the movies and weaves Harlow's tough girl phrases and expressions into her conversation.
Leigh and Miranda Richardson spend most of the film in each other's company. Although Richardson's character is doped up on laudanum (tincture of opium) most of the time, you get the idea that she is taking in a lot more of the situation than she is letting on. It is a fascinating pairing. One of them has lost all restraint, the other has lost everything but her restraint. There is almost a "Thelma and Louise" quality to their relationship, in part because Leigh doing Harlow ends up sounding a lot like Geena Davis doing Geena Davis.
Richardson's character is unexpectedly touching. An emotional bond is subtly forged between the two women as the film proceeds, with Richarson actually becoming protective of her kidnapper. The ending is shocking but you understand the motivation (or you will if you watch it again), then looking back you pick up on the various foreshadowing devices that Altman placed throughout the film. He goes out with a bass duet of Duke Ellington's "Solitude" performed by Ron Carter and Christian McBride.
Like many films with downbeat endings, "Kansas City" is destined to be more appreciated 25 years after its release.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Summary of Kansas City
Robert Altman wanted to captured a sense of what life was like in his hometown during the Depression, both in a story about the people who lived there and, more impressionistically, in the jazz that sprouted there before moving to New York. But his plot here is rambling and undramatic: A small-time hood double-crosses a vicious black gangster (Harry Belafonte) and is grabbed by him, marked for death. To save his life, the hood's dim blond wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) kidnaps a rich politician's wife (Miranda Richardson) and spends the day driving around town with her, on the theory that the politician can convince the gangster to free her husband. Leigh is jittery, Richardson seems bored--and the lengthy jam sessions we see (involving contemporary musicians such as Joshua Redman) serve only to prolong an already slow-moving film. Possibly worth seeing for the silky menace of Belafonte, but there is little else to recommend it. --Marshall FineDrama Video
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