The Color of Money: Scorsese's payment to the Hollwood Machine

The Color of Money (1986):
In my last post, I claimed this film to be a blatant commercial venture. Upon revisiting the film it still is. Color is a sequel to The Hustler, and an inferior one at that. It is a star vehicle for Paul Newman to return to a great role 25 years after the fact. The film is not as bad as most commercial filmmakers would have made it, but I find it extremely trivial for such a personal filmmaker as Martin Scorsese.
The film even opens with Scorsese narrating about the rules of nine ball. To me, this mocks the brilliant and passionate opening of Mean Streets. Scorsese is making a mockery of his own art for the sake of getting the funds to do Last Temptation of Christ. I came in with no qualms knowing the original film, and having seen the sequel years before. The touch of the director is not lost in the story, but is extremely diluted. We can sense that this is not his own project, and must be devoted to the eventual declaration of “Fast” Eddie Felson: “I’m back!” Hopefully after this project Scorsese was able to say the same to his artistic freedom and creativity. With The Color of Money Scorsese was successfully able to shake off his demons that stemmed from the late 70’s and prove that he was able to bring a project in on time while simultaneously manufacturing a perfect commercial product with enough of his touch to classify it as somewhat artistic.
The film oddly enough has enough of Scorsese’s touch to classify it as one of his canon. The focus on weaknesses of characters and slight nods to the original never seem stagy. We are even denied the final pool match between Felson and Vincent, and thus are denied with our emotional payoff. This shows that Marty knew what he was doing and wanted to play with our expectations of commercial schlock.
Thematically this film ties into the original, but lacks any of its magic. The Hustler was realistically photographed in gorgeous black and white Cinemascope. It is a depressing morality play about a young hustler who gains character at great cost. It really needs no sequel. However, Newman was persuaded to come back to the character 25 years on by this script. What a script. It is abound with time old clichés that grate so vividly on the viewer’s mind that it takes all the brilliance of Martin Scorsese to keep it from getting too lifeless. We have the obvious younger man that reminds Eddie of himself. Of course it brings back emotions, and an idea germinates in the old man’s mind. How many times have we seen this before? We know that three things will happen: it will go off well, it won’t, or the old man will gain back his sense of self. The interesting places this story could go would make it less commercial. This makes me wonder if Paul Newman signed on for this draft of the story. If he waited 25 years for the right script; how could this be it?
To me, Scorsese and Newman should have thrown out the script entirely. What should have happened is the young couple wind up a 1980’s carbon copy of the same sad story that happened to Eddie-and the old man is directly responsible. That would make it a Martin Scorsese picture. Or better yet lose the young idiots and focus entirely on the old man himself. It’s his movie anyway. Why not actually focus on the most important character? The film as it stands is Newman’s but built around Tom Cruise’s ignorant and completely unimportant Vincent. Why do we need such a forgettable and clichéd character? Answer: simply for box office appeal. Further amplifying this is the film’s poster. Cruise’s name and image is as prominent as Newman’s. Why would a completely new character figure so prominently in an ad for a sequel to one of Paul Newman’s most iconic performances?
I know that Marty really wanted to do Last Temptation. This film is living proof of it. You can see the passion at which he loves that film. This is certainly not his forte nor would he ever have agreed to do it if it had not been for the dream of doing Last Temptation. That passion comes through in admittedly few moments in Color of Money, but those few moments alone raise this inferior work far above other of its caliber.