Kansas City
(New Line)

During the early part of Robert Altman’s commentary of Kansas City, he relates that while making Tanner ’88, he had this loose idea for a story that would wrap mobsters and politics around the music of the 1930’s. A group of foreign investors approached him for a new project and his idea came to fruition. The bad news is, there isn’t a lot of plot detail going on here and as originally intended, the music is the focus of the film. The good news is, the music is great. The revolving band members include Joshua Redman, Nicolas Payton, David Murray, Geri Allen, Russell Malone, Ron Carter, Don Byron, David ‘Fathead’ Newman and others and appear to be performing at any hour, whether the club is open or closed. As for the actors, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Harry Belafonte chew up the scenery, Miranda Richardson seems really high on the Laudanum her character is hooked on and Dermot Mulroney and Steve Buscemi each have approximately five lines of dialog each. Not one of Altman’s better pictures, but it looks great and the music swings.