by:Aaron Butler It’s not often that a movie transports the viewer to another place, something we all hope for each time we make our pilgrimage to the cinema, but Devil in a Blue Dress, more than succeeds. A beautifully directed story slowly wraps itself around you and almost takes control as you leave, the theater feels more like an airport terminal, ushering you back to reality.

Mixing classic film noir mystery with both dark and light comedy, Devil is convincingly set in the post-war 1940s with admirably detailed sets and costumes. The visual impact of this film begins before the first line of dialogue, with a breathtaking shot of Las Angeles’ bustling Sunset Boulevard as dozens of 1940s automobiles parade bumper-to-bumper through the crowded street. Then the story starts.

Ezekiel Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) is an ex-soldier trying to make a living as a civilian. Fired from his job at an aircraft factory by a racist supervisor, he accepts $100 from a quietly menacing man who does favors for friends to track down the ex-girlfriend of an L.A. mayoral candidate. In good mystery movies things are never as simple as they appear, and Easy runs into conspiracy, blackmail and corruption around every turn.

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A fantastically satisfying tale, Devil has the feel of a long summer evening visit to a new town. The people look like people everywhere, the bars, stores and streets are familiar, yet each person here has a story, and some are like none you have ever heard.

The novel-based screenplay, like all great stories, takes its characters as seriously as its plot twists. DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore) is an ex-lawyer seduced by the power he holds over others’ lives by operating above the law. Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) is the mystery woman on the run from so many people even she doesn’t know them all; Mouse (Maury Chaykin) is a criminal’s criminal who carries multiple guns and kills with the impersonality of a cashier at a check-out line. Even the minor characters draw us into their environment. Their actions may amaze, elicit sympathy, shock or repulse the point is you react to them, and are hooked by their respective situations.

The actors, especially Washington and Chaykin, leave their star baggage behind, disappearing beneath the powerful personalities they provide faces for. Washington tones down the authority and confidence he brought to roles in Malcolm X, Philadelphia and Crimson Tide, expertly adopting Easy’s confusion and shifty nervous energy. Chaykin play the most violent, cruel and heartless person in the film, yet he also manages to draw the most laughs, his face flashing ice-cold murder one moment and bemused humor the next.

It’s a ten. Devil knows all the reasons we are watching, and delivers an entertaining, thought-provoking story with terrific characters, a visually hypnotic trip to another time, different from ours yet still relevant.