★★½
“God told me to do it.”
With a running time of 155 minutes, this feels like the Gone With the Wind of low-budget urban cinema. To be fair, it didn’t feel that long. To be honest, this might have been partly because it was watched in five separate chunks, over the course of about a week. However, in comparison to some entries I’ve seen, this is technically competent. Director Freddie (whose last name appears to have been abandoned) knows where to point the camera, and he has assembled a decent enough cast of actors, presumably found in the Charlotte, North Carolina area where the story unfolds. Though in this genre, “decent enough” is code for “does not generate physical pain with their performances.”
It opens with a quote from the Bible – Jeremiah 29:11, to be precise. This will become relevant, although not for another two hours or more. Instead, we are into what is probably trope #1 for the genre: the rise-and-fall story. In this case, the heroine is Nia (Evans), whom we first meet in prison. New inmate Sheba (Abell) realizes that Nia used to be her idol, when Nia was on the outside and called ‘Baddie Bedina’. Her reputation had her dead or on the run. In reality, she’s been inside for a decade, with ten more to serve, and tells her life story to Sheba. This begins with her as a young girl, struggling to take care of her disabled father, a situation which eventually forces her into prostitution.
However, she’s good enough at that to become one of the top escorts in the city, the #1 girl at the agency for whom she works, the subtly-named “Harlots”. One of her most regular and richest customers is businessman JP (Tillman), who falls for Baddie. She discovers his business is crime, and saves his life (top) when his enemies attack them at his house. After he goes to prison, for assaulting a slumlord, she takes over and expands the territory under their control – with surprising ease, it has to be said). However, this comes at a price, and the eventual reprisals force Baddie on the run. She hides out in a remote cabin which her father built with his friend Arthur (Massey).
Trouble follows: unsurprisingly, because she blabs her location to the head of Harlots, after about 30 seconds of chit-chat. Considering they didn’t exactly part on good company, this is incredibly dumb of her. However, she has an ally because Harold is… No, I can’t even. Let’s just say, I did not see his identity coming, and that Bible verse becomes increasingly relevant. It’s certainly unique among GWG films: whether it’s good or not is likely a sharp matter of both personal opinion, and religious conviction. Nia speaks about taking the consequences for her actions, yet there’s a (literal) get out of jail free card here. Credit to Freddie for taking a different route – I just can’t say it’s one that worked for me.
Dir: Freddie
Star: August Evans, Torri J. Tillman, Carlos Massey, Destiny Abell