What underlies the formulaic plotting of melodrama is the fact that the values according to which we judge whether a character is good or bad are never called into question. It's at most a matter of suspense as to whether a figure like Russell will turn toward the holy light or slide back into infernal darkness. In a mystery it's a matter of concealing the information of who the evil character is, but there's never any real question as to what constitutes good and bad in either case.
Romance often polarizes good and evil, too, but at its best the episodic structure gives it more space to develop its view of a universal system of meaning in which good and evil are made comprehensible and palpable to us. Melodrama always feels thinner to me than romance, probably because it's a theatrical mode requiring stripped-down, unified action. We understand that Russell undergoes a redemption in the course of the movie, but the context of what redemption means is scarcely developed at all, except in the negative sense of renouncing what we've watched him do. In melodrama we're urged to see evil as an identifiable force outside us to be cast out like a demon, ritualistically vanquished. It sure works out neatly. But say the head of the SIS were a secret crime lord and one of his lieutenants exposed him--how different would race relations in L.A. be as a result?
Melodrama can't tell you anything about how the world actually works, no matter how ostensibly realistic the handling is, because the writer has to simplify and distort the material to fit the formula. A classic example from Dark Blue is the sequence in which Russell pressures a female magistrate into issuing a warrant on the basis of his perjurious word. Their negotiation is the best thing in the movie. She knows he's up to no good but he seems to plant just enough doubt in her mind to get what he wants. It doesn't seem like factual doubt, but power doubt--will he outplay her in the system and make her look bad--a hand of poker of the sort we play at our jobs all the time. But then as Russell leaves with the warrant he tells his young partner that he holds an explicitly sexual video of the woman over her, and the movie gets right back on track. Next we see a judge sign the trumped-up warrant while literally holding a martini in the other hand. At that moment it could be a live-action version of The Simpsons.
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