A fresh district attorney's assistant (Barkin) enters the scene and focuses her attention on corruption within the police department. Simultaneously, the chief detective (Quaid) attempts to build a rapport with her while they investigate an unusual murder connected to organized crime. Ned Beatty, John Goodman, Lisa Jane Persky, and Ebbe Roe Smith appear as members of the law enforcement agency. "The Big Easy" (1987) combines the sense of fellowship seen in Burt Reynolds’ “Fuzz” from fourteen years earlier with the atmosphere and more serious nature of “Cat People,” Eastwood’s “Tightrope,” and Gere’s “No Mercy,” which was released just months before this film. "Cop Land" clearly drew inspiration from it a decade later. The movie is steeped in the feel of New Orleans, featuring Cajun, zydeco, R&B, and gospel music on its soundtrack. Some people applaud Quaid's strong Cajun accent, while others find it excessive. I agree with the latter; however, I don’t usually pay much attention to accents in movies, so it doesn’t bother me. It does seem that Dennis’ detective is overly friendly, but this could be attributed to Quaid later admitting he was using cocaine during filming and only sleeping one hour each night. Despite this, both Dennis and Ellen have stated that this is their favorite film among the many they've made. Although it received excessive praise when it first came out and I would prefer to watch “Cat People” and “Cop Land” instead, it’s better than "Fuzz" and definitely worth seeing for those who are interested. Besides the entertaining (and occasionally gruesome) events, not to mention Barkin's attractiveness, I appreciated the commentary on legal principles: If you want to be precise about it, people violate laws every day, like crossing the street illegally. But what happens when *you* are the Law? Where do you establish a moral boundary? How much is too much? What’s that proverbial point of no return? It has a running time of 1 hour and 41 minutes and was filmed in New Orleans. GRADE: B-

Source on TMDB