Dark Streets has a lot of different things going on. There is a lot of blues music, some dancing, a mystery concerning the city's rolling blackouts, and an eclectic cast of characters. Unfortunately, these disparate elements do not fit together well. The film is short on character development and has only the barest outline of a plot. What you're left with is a series of poorly executed tableaux, with little or nothing going on beneath the surface.
It's hard to offer a synopsis of this film, because if you condense the screenplay down to just the dramatic action, you're not left with much. But this much I can say: Chaz Davenport (a miscast Gabriel Mann) is a young playboy from a rich family. His hobby is his nightclub, but business is bad. It's not clear why, since the place seems jam-packed, and his family is supposed to be rich.
Davenport is, of course, romantically involved with one (or more, it's unclear) of the showgirls, but there is a special connection between him and the star of the show (Bijou Phillips) because the two of them have known each other since childhood. This is revealed to us in a short scene written not with dialogue, but with thinly disguised exposition. That's not so bad, really, because it's the most hard information we get; the actual scenes between the actors fail to give us any idea of their relationship, drawn as they are with the broadest of strokes.
Davenport's prospects may be on the rise, though. After a tough character comes in, pulls a gun and demands money from Davenport (who he is or why he is "owed" this money is never made clear), a policeman (Elias Koteas) arrives to shoot the villain down in the nick of time. This policeman is written to be an odd fellow, and Koteas certainly brings this out. But he's a literal-minded character whose earnest facial expressions and law enforcement aphorisms make him seem even more plastic. His function within the plot, not to mention his incomprehensible character choices, are a mystery to me.
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