Movie review - "Cotton Club: Encore" (1984/2018) ***1/2

I have an unfashionable theory that years-after-the-event director's cuts don’t really improve a movie - eg Star Wars A New Hope, Heaven's Gate, yes even Blade Runner - and that was the case with Cotton Club Encore.

Sure it was lovely to see more dance numbers and more Gregory Hines but the central problem remained - too many scenes outside the club which should be inside the club (eg the opening attempted assassination of Dutch Schultz, reunion of the Hines brothers, Greg Hines wooing Lonette McKee via song and dancing). 

Watching it I kept muttering to myself "just set these scenes inside the club". That opening bit where Gere meets James Remar - that could be at the Club, towards closing time. The Hines brothers getting back together - Maurice can come to see Greg perform instead of the other way around. You could establish off screen McKee is performing as white.

The other problem was the film could never simplify the connection between Dutch Schultz (James Remar) and Dixie (Richard Gere) - "I want you to be my trumpet player/driver/fashion adviser/mistress escort"... just make up your mind, Coppola. Gere playing trumpet is a mistake - it forces the film to go to another club because whites didn't play. They should have just had him as a dancer like George Raft - play up the male prostitute angle. When the film starts he's basically a hooker, like Lane - so they bond. Make him a good dancer - Gere could dance - he could dance at the Club, just not in the show. Lane shouldn't want to run a club - give her a fashion line or something so she can bring fashions into the club. Or be a radio performer.

It's a shame because all the storylines are dramatically solid (fall in love with gangster's mistress, black singer who passes for white, dancing brothers duo who fall out, gang war in Harlem, brother becomes gangster) and the support cast is sensational - Bob Hoskins, Fred Gwynne, Laurence Fisburn, Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Grey, Maurice Hines, John Ryan, Joe Dellesandro, Ed O'Ross, Julian Beck, Gwen Vernon etc...

Nice to see on the big screen, though - where it's clear Diane Lane totally kept putting in the tongue kissing Richard Gere.

My favourite bits:
 - Remar stabbing John Ryan and Fred Gwynne pulling a gun
- Julian Beck's Saul explaining his backstory
- how Cage and Grey really look like 1930s people
- the reunion between the Hines brothers
- the finale where it looks like Coppola did a line of coke and went "f*ck it" and did a big musical number where the stage show is intercut with numbers in real life
- Lane's expression at the end when Gere sees her at the train
- the gold watch scene

I feel it was a mistake to change the opening credits - no longer do they cut away to a musical number. Why? That was a great way to intro the film.