21 Years Later, Denzel Washington's Neo-Noir Detective Thriller Is Already a Classic

Published Jul 30, 2026, 6:17 AM EDT Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself. No living actor emanates the same level of authority and integrity as Denzel Washington. For over 30 years, Washington has been a big-screen icon, equal parts gifted dramatic actor and illustrious movie star. Working across a variety of film types, from prestige to high-concept genre entertainment, the two-time Oscar winner fully realized himself in the 1990s, following his transformative work as Malcolm X in Spike Lee's eponymous biopic. No matter the role, he could be charming, romantic, and imposing all at once, a confection best represented in one of his finest performances of this era, Devil in a Blue Dress. Based on the detective story of the same name by Walter Mosley, Washington's performance as the author's signature private eye, Easy Rawlins, was a major turning point for the noir genre. Best of all, Carl Franklin's crackling film, featuring top-shelf neo-noir craft and sharp commentary on the evergreen issue of race relations in America, is available to stream on Prime Video. Denzel Washington is a Man Out of Time and Place in 'Devil in a Blue Dress' Image via TriStar Pictures Devil in a Blue Dress, released in 1995, sees Denzel Washington as Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a World War II veteran trying to adapt to a post-war Los Angeles in the late 1940s. Struggling to find steady work, he accepts a job as a private investigator for an ominous gangster, DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore), and is tasked with solving the disappearance of a mysterious woman, Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals). Like any good detective story, Easy finds himself in way over his head, entangled in a cryptic mystery exposing the flagrant corruption of the city. As a working-class black man in a white man's world, Easy faces the everyday racism of LA with an unflinching ease, but his fortitude is constantly pushed to the limit. Calling a Denzel Washington performance "great" is a reductive statement. Although everyone knows that you're getting exceptional work from him in any movie, whether it's Training Day or The Tragedy of Macbeth, he always surprises you with every role. In Devil in a Blue Dress, he brings an unknowable yet fully cohesive performance as Easy Rawlins, a man out of time and place. Easy's shrewd instincts, diligence, and confidence should make him the ideal individual, but his existence as an African-American in a major city in the '40s weighs him down at every turn. For Easy, the war never ended, and every day is a fight for survival. Washington's familiar brand of tough, no-nonsense demeanor is alive and well in this film, but he also infuses the sweeping emotionality fhe displayed in movies like Mississippi Masala and Déjà Vu into this gritty crime thriller. The actor was at his best when undermining traditional heroic parts with a sense of eternal yearning, suggesting that there is something beneath the surface that's haunting him — and his search for Daphne speaks to a longing for something out of his reach. 'Devil in a Blue Dress' Updates the Film Noir Genre Devil in a Blue Dress hooks you instantly and never lets go of its alluring, cryptic mystery. The plot and character stakes shift on a dime, but Carl Franklin, who broke through with his debut crime thriller One False Move, keeps the focus on Easy's plight as a mock detective unaware of what he's investigating. The film is the culmination of classical noirs and neo-noirs, channeling both The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown visually and thematically. Washington is certainly on par with the towering presences of Humphrey Bogart and Jack Nicholson, and his infectious personality fleshes out the archetypal hard-boiled detective to the most humane degree. The post-war angst of America of Double Indemnity and Out of the Past takes an even harsher turn in Devil in a Blue Dress, which cribs from '70s neo-noirs like Klute to expose the rotten core of our trusted institutions. Washington is obviously exceptional in the film, but the true scene-stealer of Devil in a Blue Dress is Don Cheadle as Mouse, a former friend of Easy's with a dangerous past who arrives in the second half to support the detective, but only causes more chaos. Tom Sizemore, one of the best character actors of the decade, who provided unforgettable work in Natural Born Killers and Heat, is a force of sheer terror in this noir, a figure who looms over Easy and the apparatus of racism and corruption in LA. Devil in a Blue Dress is still egregiously overlooked in the canon of modern detective movies, and one of the reasons is because Carl Franklin made his unique genre riff and exercise in social commentary look so effortless. A refreshing throwback that pushed the genre forward, the film is a treat for all avid fans of hard-boiled crime stories. Devil in a Blue Dress is streaming on Prime Video.