A veteran in this hard job Robert Duvall, incarnates the wisdom experience, and a young man Sean Penn will be training in this underworld through the hidden face of L.A.
Though the script suffers a little bit of fallling in common places the formule engages the viewer. Duvall and the excellent camera work of Dennis Hopper. Maria Conchita Alonso makes an interesting performance in a little role. Penn as always splendid but Duvall stole the show. In certain way, he holds the sixty per cent of the film.
To my mind this is the second major work of Dennis Hopper after Easy Rider.

dont buy it not enough action but rent it

Dennis Hopper presented an unseen vision of Americana with EASY RIDER in 1969. It unsettled the masses. He did the same almost 20 years later with COLORS, a frightfully realistic look at urban gang warfare in Los Angeles. Hopper has always been a talent, both in front and behind the camera. COLORS could only be handled by the likes of an independent spirit like Hopper: It's tough, brutal, no watered down studio gloss, no techno effects. Hopper is an actors director and Robert Duvall and Sean Penn are a perfect fit. The oft told cop story of the veteran and the novice gets an injection of new life: the partners don't like each other, they tolerate each other for the sake of survival. Duvall and Penn give strong expected performances and the story rifles along free of expected cliches. Ice-T, in his rapper days (pre LAW & ORDER: SVU) is featured on the soundtrack.

I liked COLORS alot because it's a gritty, but realistic police drama. I grew up in bad urban streets, so I know how bad things can get. I also like the film because it explored the dangerous lives the Crypts and Bloods, who wear blue and red, naturally. There is still a bloody gang war between them, but COLORS wisely tells us they're bad background and potray them as human beings like us, and not vicious animals arrested by the police we see on TV.

Anyway, Dennis Hopper awkardly, but fantastically directed this film with Robert Duvall as a veteran cop and his young, headstrong apprentice Sean Penn, as they lead a Los Angeles gang unit against the petty crime in the streets fueled by the two rival gangs. But the boiled relationship with Duvall's calm manner and Penn's hair-trigger temper won't get them very far to survive in Watt's mean streets. That problem leads to a sad climax.

COLORS is a bit dated now when compared to more brutal, but nearly worthless gang movies nowadays. But it helped paved the way more better ones like BOYZ N THE HOOD and MENACE II SOCIETY. The film is different from both of those movies because it gives us a picturesque view of both the urban gang life and the police life.

Colors, a realistic account of the irreversible damage done to the city of Los Angeles by gang violence. Robert Duvall is partnered with trigger-happy PAC MAN(Sean Penn) and together the two deliver an action-packed adventure you'll never forget!