Tag: urban

Chained

  By

★★
“Puts the gang in chain gang.”

Jaz (Severino) gets arrested by the cops and hauled off to Rikers Island on… well, let’s say slightly bogus charges. Her long time pal, Trouble (Martinez) is on the outside and sets about raising bail for Jaz, by any means necessary. That involves putting together a crew of her own who will seize the opportunity to take over drug-running territory in part of their neighbourhood. Needless to say, this decision doesn’t come without perils of its own, both from the authorities and the others with eyes on the profits to be made. Jaz, meanwhile, is having to come to terms with prison life, and isn’t exactly making friends on the inside. Even when the money for her bond is raised, Jaz’s issues aren’t over. However, Trouble finds a solution, after discovering the cops who arrested her have a little side-hustle of their own.

Considering this was made for $15,000, it has its strengths, Most obviously, it feels authentic. The players here may not have much in the way of formal acting experience or training. But I sense they’re not particularly required to do more than be enhanced versions of themselves. The way they act, talk and behave seems legit. Admittedly, who am I to judge? I didn’t exactly grow up on the mean streets of New York. But I can still tell when there is Obvious Acting going on, and it’s a flaw you often see in this kind of low-budget enterprise. I didn’t have to endure that kind of fakery here, and on the whole, the individual scenes were generally fine.

What didn’t work, unfortunately, was the overall flow, with the various plot threads never coming together into a coherent and engaging narrative. I felt like it was taking place over the span of several decades, but there were points when this wasn’t clear. Any film which wraps up with a brief “Twenty years later” scene – in which nobody seems to have aged a day – is on shaky ground. There were also a lot of moments where the script outran the budget. The “police van” in the opening scene, clearly isn’t. Indeed, I genuinely LOL’d later, as the same interior shows up on a van, rented from U-Haul, used for a raid on another gang. If you can’t afford a police van, or at least a decent facsimile, don’t write a scene needing one. The police station and Rikers Island were also… less than convincing, shall we say.

It is likely a little over-stuffed too. For a movie running only 76 minutes, the story tries to cram a lot in, and some of the threads (such as a pregnancy) end up feeling like afterthoughts. More restraint in writer-director Cardona’s ambition would have been for the best. She’s clearly familiar with street life, its characters, and how they behave. When the story sticks to this, the movie is at its most effective, although there’s nothing particularly new or important being said. When it tries to be more expansive, though, the resources just aren’t there, and the shortcomings are painfully apparent.

Dir: Deborah Cardona
Star: Rosemary Severino, Sheerice Martinez, Tyhem Commodore, Lexie Jose

Jack Squad

  By

★★
“Considerably less would have been more.”

At 85 minutes, this might have been fine. For it’s a fairly simple tale, of three women who decide to escape their financial woes by drugging and robbing married men, banking on their victims not being willing to involve the authorities. While this initially works as planned, inevitably, they end up targeting the wrong guy, a minion of feared drug dealer Grey (Anderson). How evil is he? Grey appears to have an employee whose full-time job is to fan him. That’s some Evil Overlord style, right there. Grey doesn’t just want his stolen money back, he wants the trio to continue their activities – for his benefit. And that isn’t the only problem which the trio face, with Tony, the estranged other half of Dawn (Tares), unhappy at her having escaped their abusive relationship.

Somehow, in the hands of writer-director-producer Rankins, this uncomplicated story runs 128 minutes, which is way too long. If ever there was evidence that films sometimes need someone else to step in and say, literally, “Cut that out,” this would be it. You could go at the “director’s version” blindfolded, with a rusty bread-knife, hacking entire scenes out, attacking others with all the savage brutality of a starving man at a Vegas buffet, and would be incapable of doing any real harm to the end product. If you can’t see where half an hour couldn’t be excised, to the general improvement of the pacing, you’re not trying hard enough.

Which is at least somewhat of a shame, since this wasn’t otherwise as bad as I thought it might be. It is certainly an improvement over the director’s almost unwatchable, Chop Shop. The three leads are adequate, and the script gives them reasonably well-delineated characters. As well as recovering abuse victim Dawn, there’s fashion student Kennedy (Halfkenny), who has qualms about the whole endeavour. Though she’s also the one who triggers the escalating body-count, by robbing Grey’s underling. And then we have Mona (Williams) who develops a liking for the violence, and gradually becomes a fully-fledged psychopath. The three different personalities certainly provide plenty of scope for drama and conflict, as they try to figure out how to handle their increasingly untenable situation.

That said, some of the attitudes here are difficult to empathize with. For example, Kennedy ghosts the kind but poor fellow student, apparently preferring the lure of well-heeled “pharmaceutical” workers. And that’s how you end up in abusive relationships, folks, or having to chase down your baby daddy for child support, as recently documented in Sweet Justice. There’s also no getting over the low-budget approach, most obvious in “gunfire” which couldn’t be much more fake, if the people wielding the weapons were yelling “Bang!” and using their fingers as firearms. But the major problem is the one described above: a self-indulgent approach, almost as if Rankins believed everything filmed had to be included in the final product. When making a low-budget feature, like this, you may need to wear many hats. But that does not negate the need for external and neutral guidance.

Dir: Simuel Rankins
Star: Dawnisha Halfkenny, Onira Tares, Patshreba Williams, Benjamin Anderson

Restless (2020)

  By

★★
“Mom on a mission”

Single mother Naomi Harper (Anderson) is devoted to her son, and he to her. In an effort to help Mom make ends meet, he gets a job working for notorious local “businessman”, Noah Oliver (Wilson). When her child turns up dead, Naomi is sure that Oliver had something to do with it. The police, in particular Detectives Emory Kota (Conell) and August Hayes ( Jeziorski), don’t necessarily disagree, but their hands are tied. This is partly due to a shortage of actionable evidence, partly because Oliver’s connections run deep into the local political and judicial establishment in Conyers, Georgia, making it impossible to take action against him. Well, at least officially. Naomi has no such limitations, and this apparently mild-mannered loan officer has a background that may prove of help.

The script here isn’t bad. There are a number of interesting angles, such as the parallel actions of a vigilante, working in same area as Naomi, and targetting those who consider themselves above the law. Naomi isn’t the only strong female character either, with Det. Kota frustrated by the restrictions of her position. Then there’s Sophia (Rachel Burger), Oliver’s right-hand ma… er, woman, who proves capable of handling herself physically as well. Though I probably would have been more impressed had Naomi not done that crappy, gangsta “holding the gun at an angle” thing, as she headed towards her final confrontation with Oliver. Nobody with experience and an interest in being taken seriously would be caught dead doing that.

However, the problems here are most readily apparent in the resources here. Or, to be more accurate, the lack thereof. Even though the film tries to work within the budgetary limitations, these are so severe, they can’t be hidden. For instance, scenes which are supposed to take place in a police station, very clearly don’t. Indeed, there’s very little effort to make it look like anything, except a bare, empty room. The same goes for a number of other locations, where the bare minimum appears to have been done in terms of set dressing. Hardly less glaring are the plugs for local venue, Triplz Lounge. I’m sure it’s a lovely place.

Another weakness is that most of the actors don’t appear to fit their characters. Wilson is probably the worst offender, never being convincing as a mob boss – he’s just not intimidating or threatening enough. But to a lesser extent, the same goes for Anderson. Despite copious flashbacks to a time when her son was alive, she rarely seemed like a distraught mother, pushed into unthinkable acts by the callous and indifferent hand of fate.  She’s not a bad actress, competent enough from a technical point of view. There just wasn’t any reason for the viewer to pay the emotional buy-in to her portrayal. I’d not mind seeing what Jackson and his team could do with more money, and I’ve certainly seen worse. Here though, the challenges prove just too much for them to overcome.

Dir: Rodney Jackson
Star: Tai Anderson, Tavares M. Wilson, Robyn Conell, Will Jeziorski

Certain Fury

  By

★★★★
“When child stars grow up”

Child actors have a difficult challenge facing them when the reach adulthood. They are not the sweet kids anymore that everyone loves and wants to cuddle with. They can’t rely on the cuteness factor anymore that made them once so successful. That can lead to tragedy. How many former kid stars became drug addicts or committed suicide because they couldn’t return to that time anymore, when in a way the world was theirs? Others were smart enough to leave film business behind them and start a new career e. g. Shirley Temple. But a few of them are indeed lucky. they stay calm amidst all the thunderstorms of early successes and puberty, manage to stay relevant to audiences and even find a new footing and grown-up roles, that cement their careers as everlasting film stars. Actresses like Sophie Marceau or Jodie Foster come to mind.

The latter is a particular success story, making the transition from child actor to grown-up movie star. In the 70s she was the regular tomboy in Disney family comedies and at one point was even under consideration to play a young Princess Leia in what would become the first Star Wars movie. Her constant competitor in tomboy roles was Tatum O’Neal. the youngest ever to win an Oscar, for her performance in Peter Bogdanovich’s beautiful tragic-comedy Paper Moon (1973), next to her father. She also played a tomboy in The Bad News Bears as Walter Matthau’s daughter. Coincidentally, Paper Moon became a TV series in which Jodie Foster played O’Neal’s role! Unfortunately, O’Neal went through the usual teen-phase, then slowly disappeared from the screen. Later she made headlines for her troubled marriage and addiction. Just a couple of years ago again when she was taken in by police because she wanted to buy some drugs.

Why this long introduction? It’s because I think it’s kind of unjust how her career went – though everyone is responsible for their own decisions and you never really can plan to be in “successful movies“. But contrast the career of Foster who had a similar basis, but persevered after making some less interesting movies for much of the 1980’s. Her second career in films began with the Oscar for Accused (1988) and then moved on from there to bigger things. It just shows that you may have talent and get credit for some time in Hollywood. But if the right movie and role doesn’t come along, and you make some bad decisions, anyone’s promising movie career can just evaporate in front of your eyes.

There are movies that are crossroads that can lead to other – maybe better – things or open up a new role type for you, maybe an entire new genre. My feeling is that Certain Fury (title in German cinemas: “In the heat of New York”) could maybe have been that for O’Neal. It just wasn’t to be.

From 1985, it checks all the boxes for a typical 80’s action buddy movie, beginning with the story. At a mass trial of young girls, responsible for different criminal acts, two prostitutes start a shoot-out in the courtroom that has to be seen to be believed. A remarkable act of violence which you hardly would ever find in a modern action movie of today where everything is usually very neat and clean. Scarlet (O’Neal) who has killed a man – in self-defence as we find out later – and Tracey (Cara, who won an Oscar herself for her song in Flashdance shortly before; the title song here is also by her) are among those who take their chances in the ensuing chaos. They run from the court building into the streets, chased by the police.

They are more fortunate than one of the prostitutes, who gets shot into the back. Really, this movie could only exist in the 80’s, and would be unthinkable for today’s Hollywood. The pair make it into the sewers, and survive an underground explosion, caused by a cop’s lit cigarette igniting sewer gas. They eventually meet one of Scarlet’s lovers named Sniffer (Nicholas Campbell) who is an especially disgusting creature. He obviously makes porn and after Scarlet has left, tries to rape Tracey in the shower. While not a particularly graphic scene, it might well work against the possibility of the film being released in the US again. 

Scarlet tries her best to get help from another former lover, the arrogant, rich, criminal Rodney, who turns out to be played by Peter Fonda. Did he ever get an Oscar for one of his movies? I don’t think so. [Jim: no, just nominated for Ulee’s Gold] It’s so strange because he’s the most well-known actor in this movie. But he likes her as lttle as her other ex, and cuts her cheek with a knife. She just returns right on time to escape with Tracey before Rodney’s men arrive to get her after he made a deal with the police. Scarlet has taken some of Sniffer’s drugs and manage to sell them in what looks like a giant derelict house in the slums. It really is a movie from Reagan era! ;-)) Her persecutor arrives on the scene, injects Tracey with drugs, sets fire to the house and has a final fight with Scarlet before meeting a fiery death.

Police inspector Lt. Speier (Murdock) is meanwhile trying to find the girls, together with Tracey’s father, Dr. Freeman (Moses Gunn, e. g. a gangster boss in Shaft). The theme of Black and White working together is repeated in these characters, as in the girls themselves. This is a very positive, uplifting message but – unlike today where many movies have become a lesson about racism and discrimination – it’s not a lecture, it’s inherent in the movie’s story and characters. It makes this much more palatable for me than modern movies who lose the entertainment aspect in the background, while putting their lessons in your face.

As the two girls are believed to be dead (Tracey reads it in the newspapers; Scarlet can’t read) they consider a new life together, free in the mountains. But Scarlet doesn’t believe it’s possible, and in her brusque manner tosses Tracey away from her. When the police arrive, Scarlet still keeps on walking on a bridge, so they shoot her in the back. But the last shot shows Scarlet being hold by Tracey and Dr. Freeman saying it is not so serious, and was only into the shoulder. Guess that’s a happy ending… or something like that!

It’s all tough stuff. Certain Fury isn’t an “important” movie; indeed, you could even argue whether or not it is a “good” movie. As a matter of fact, I had a strong feeling when watching this movie that Charles Bronson might come around the corner any moment to “clean up the slums of New York“. It really looks like one of those cheap Cannon flicks that were such guilty pleasures in the video stores of the 80s (and might be even more now!). And, indeed, just a short time later, Cannon had Charlie handcuffed to a snotty teen, and sent on a similar road trip through gangster-land in Murphy’s Law (1986). Though that movie more or less dropped any social issues of the O’Neal-Cara-film and concentrated on the bloody action of Bronson versus the rest of the criminal underworld.

I note also obvious similarities to the Stanley Kramer-classic The Defiant Ones (1958) with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier. Scarlet is not nice and understanding, she is street-wise, prone to anger and absolutely insulting. Heck, she even drops the N-word to Tracey. So the inspiration is arguably there. And who knows, maybe it wasn’t an accident that a year after this movie, The Defiant Ones got an update in a 1986 television movie with Robert Urich and Carl Weathers (also a very watchable movie). [Jim: there’s also Black Mama, White Mama, in which Pam Grier and Margaret Markov are another inter-racial pairing, who escape from prison handcuffed together]

While I mainly saw and enjoyed Certain Fury for what it was – enjoyable over-the-top action trash – the movie nevertheless put some fingers into social issues that may be as relevant today in America, as they were almost 40 years ago. Racism, social class differences, uncontrollable no-go areas, criminality, poverty, drugs and – yes – even police brutality can be witnessed in this movie. Though after the bloody mass shoot-out in the courtroom at the beginning, where hardly anyone is left alive, you can maybe understand the over-reaction of the police! I don’t think this  almost forgotten little movie offers any solutions to these myriad of problems. But it at least suggests that even very different people can understand and support each other, even if it needs an extreme emergency to do so. It’s a theme also mirrored in the very different duo of the white police inspector and the black surgeon.

Now, I wouldn’t recommend the movie if you want a high-quality social drama: too much Charles Bronson in it, if you ask me. But it’s enjoyable action trash, and interesting that at one point Tatum O’Neal could have become an action or thriller star. The latter genre was, after all, the one in which Jodie Foster found her greatest commercial success. O’Neal’s acting is very good, I think; there’s nothing left of that little brat she embodied in the 70s. Her Scarlet is an interesting character of the “hard shell, soft core” variety. She could maybe have continued in this manner; who knows? Instead of that she chose to marry tennis player John McEnroe, which obviously wasn’t the best move for her in any way.

Here’s a little confession: I feel a certain emotional connection to this movie as I discovered the trailer online and then suggested it to a German DVD label who promptly released the movie on DVD here in Germany (even with an audio commentary of two film historians!) – I think my ego is going to explode! ;-) And an interesting final tidbit: In the German-language version Tatum O’Neal is played by the voice artist who regularly dubs… Jodie Foster!

Dir: Stephen Gyllenhaal
Star: Tatum O’Neal, Irene Cara, Nicholas Campbell, George Murdock

Snow Black

  By

★
“Put this on your blacklist. And that’s snow joke.”

This isn’t quite the worst action heroine film I’ve ever seen. That dubious honour still goes to Naked Avenger, I think. But this one certainly deserves to be in the conversation. I don’t think a movie has ever lost my interest so quickly. Literally before the opening credits rolled, I realized this was the kind of almost entirely undiluted rubbish, I wouldn’t waste five minutes on, if I didn’t have to for this site. How bad was it? The film is still on, and I’ve already started writing the review. That’s virtually unprecedented. The main problem is audio which appears to have recorded on a flip-phone, from the bottom of a swimming pool. It’s among the worst I’ve ever heard on a commercial release. Initially, I thought it might be the source, but the Prime Video version was just as intolerable. At least that version had closed captions.

The plot is no great shakes, though has some potential. Sarah Camden (Buckner) comes home from the Marines to bury her mother. While she’s at home, her little sister is killed on the streets of her local town. Sarah – code name Snow Black – realizes it has been taken over by gangsters and drug dealers, with even the mayor in their service. After her father is also murdered, she decides to clean up the neighbourhood. The issues with this are plentiful, beginning with the fact our heroine’s tattoos wouldn’t actually be allowed on a Marine. Then there’s the fact she doesn’t actually fight anyone much until 55 minutes in – and this only runs 80 minutes. While Buckner looks at least somewhat the part, when she finally gets into action, it takes place in slow-motion, presumably to disguise her lack of fighting ability. This is probably also the first time I found myself wishing for some rapid-fire editing. 

Let me be absolutely clear. There is hardly a single aspect of this, which is not excruciatingly incompetent. The only scene that is even slightly memorable is when Sarah’s Aunt Sydney goes into battle herself, taking on a barful of gang members. She’s played by former Bond girl Gloria Hendry, from Live and Let Die and Black Belt Jones. Now in her seventies, it’s not a great action sequence, to put it mildly. But that it happens at all, is the best thing the movie has to offer. They should have made the whole film about her and Sarah’s father, played by another veteran action star, Van Clief (the Black Dragon), who is approaching eighty. The concept of senior citizen vigilantes is something which might have done a better job of holding my attention. 

Instead, this is 100% one of those films which I had to sit through, so that you do not have to. Find something, anything else to do, and you can thank me later. Oh, hey: the end credits are now rolling. It’s clearly time to wrap this up.

Dir: Robert D. Parham
Star: Sarah V. Buckner, Robert D. Parham, Ron Van Clief, Humberto Gonzalez 

Pocket Full of Game

  By

★★
“Game, in only the loosest sense.”

Porsha (Nunez) – and before you ask, yes, that’s how it’s spelled in the credits – is a small-time hustler, operating in the dodgier neighbourhoods of New York. When getting away from her latest escapade, she bumps into the crew of Fresh (Garcia) and his pals, who are similarly engaged, having just robbed a drug dealer. Due to flakiness on the part of one of the team, they’re looking for a new member, and Porsha successfully convinces Fresh that she is a good fit for the role. However, the rest of the gang are less convinced, and force Porsha to prove her loyalty by committing cold-blooded murder. That does her head in, and she holes up in Atlanta for a bit. Returning, she finds Fresh and her former associated have moved on, and attempts to pull off a job on her own, to get back in their graces. It doesn’t go well, shall we say, and Porsha finds herself on Rikers Island, facing a double-homicide charge.

There are a number of concerns here, of varying levels. The biggest problem is that this is 126 minutes long, and doesn’t have anything like the content to justify such a running tine. Every other scene is unnecessary, or runs to excessive length, and this causes significant issues with pacing. The script frequently seems to forget about its own threads; for example, after one robbery, a survivor vows to take revenge on Porsha, Fresh and their associates, for their actions. This only happens at the very end, and the cinematic amnesia becomes increasingly aggravating as the movie diverts instead into another pointless shit-hop montage, or irrelevant flashback to Porsha’s childhood. Another difficulty is, the resources aren’t able to handle some of the demands of the script: it is extremely obvious that the court-room required by it, isn’t anything like the real thing. The same goes for the prison, and the film only ever reaches close to convincing, or even comfortable, when it’s operating on the streets.

On the positive side, Nunez’s performance is solid enough to work, though a lot of the cast may be better suited for supporting roles than lead ones.  There were also just enough scenes that worked to keep me from hitting the off-button. In particular, the sequence where she’s made to kill, is surprisingly shocking, even in a film that clearly has no qualms about casual violence (and whose morality is about as far from “crime doesn’t pay” as could be imagined – indeed, this seems to be a world where it’s the only employment available). The problem is, the ratio of these scenes to the those which are deficient, for one or more of the reasons explained above, is about 1:10. This is apparently based on a novel, and the trailer for the book [yes, that’s apparently a thing] calls it “A hood soap opera.” I can’t argue with that – though it’s not such a positive thing, as the makers seem to think.

Dir: Deborah Cardona
Star: Katherine Nunez, Carlos Garcia, David L Holley, Joey Ortiz

The Bag Girls

  By

★★
“From bag to worse.”

Firstly, the cast names listed below are copied verbatim from the movie. I can only presume that “Megan Thee Stallion” was unavailable, but seeing those names pop up in the opening credits does make it difficult to take a film seriously. It’s like you’re watching little children playing dress-up, and a whole level of recursive nonsense, with the actors playing roles, apparently playing roles in the their “real” lives. In other news: kids, get off my damn lawn.

The core pair here are Nola (Ms. The Doll) and Dee (Ms. The Boss. Or Maybe Ms. Love the Boss? Who knows). The former is a stripper, the latter her best friend, who catches her husband cheating, only to be punted to the kerb in favour of the mistress. To extract revenge. the pair recruit Daisy (James) and Crystal (Mi’chelle) and rob the husband. Discovering that crime represents an easier source of income than, say, working for a living, they continue their efforts, gradually working their way up to bigger scores. Eventually, they get a tip-off about a big drug-buy about to go down, but are under strict instructions to take only the cash, and leave the dope. Naturally, Daisy doesn’t listen, and the Cuban owners of the drugs are very keen to retrieve their product.

There’s nothing here you haven’t seen in better films. The film-makers even have their characters openly acknowledge some of the most obvious inspirations at one point or other. This is either extremely brave or perilously reckless, since low-budget movies probably don’t want to be encouraging comparisons with their big siblings:
– What the fuck you think this is, Set It Off, Part II?
– Bitch, this ain’t no motherfucking movie.
Well, actually – yes, it is. Even the title of the film is a result of them referring to each other during their robberies, by designer handbag brands: “We can call each other code names like colors, like Ms. Pink, Ms. Yellow, like they did in Reservoir Dogs, the Quentin Tarantino movie.” I don’t know whether or not to be amused that the writer felt the need to explain who made Reservoir Dogs. But I am amused that the reaction to the suggestion is “Fuck Quentin Tarantino!” Truly a sentiment all right-thinking people can get behind, and I’m not ashamed to say that line was worth an extra half-star.

There’s not much sense of progression here, and far too much time spent on the trappings of lifestyle e.g. a Vegas trip that looks like nothing so much as a bad rap music video, rather than giving the characters or the scenario real substance. There’s the inevitable tension between the members of the gang, before the equally inevitable shootout with the Cubans. What there is not, is any sense of plausibility; I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure that, unlike Dee’s husband, I’d recognize my own wife if she tried to rob me, mask or not. Hopefully, I’ll never get to test that theory.

Dir: Wil Lewis
Star: Crystal the Doll, LA Love the Boss, Samantha “3D Na’Tee” James, Carmen Mi’chelle

Candy

  By

★★★
“Houston, we have a problem…”

You’ll probably understand why that cover picture got me to pause my casual scrolling through Amazon Prime. Well played, movie producers. Well played… Likely inevitably, the film didn’t quite live up to the advertising, mostly due to a significant lack of plot. The film barely runs 65 minutes, before we get to a sloth-like end-credit crawl, and there’s probably not enough story-line to fill a music video for one of the gangster rap songs which pepper the soundtrack. Yet, in terms of atmosphere and setting, it feels authentic. I can’t state with certainty it is, never having been a) to Houston, b) black, or c) involved in large-scale criminal enterprise. But in cinema, feeling authentic is a large part of what matters.

Candy (Adams) can check all three of those boxes, being in charge of an urban Texas group whose business is apparently equally involved in drugs, and robbing others in the same line of work. She’s rather hands-on: with three other women, including her cousin, Dody (Caliste), they go invading homes, and the residents usually come off very much the worse for it. Though sadly, those exploits aren’t the main focus of the film. Indeed, it’s kinda hard to say what is. Most of it seems occupied with a series of vignettes; narrative drive is very much secondary, though these episodes are good at portraying the two sides of a criminal life: both the glamour and the brutality.

For instance, there’s a scene where the women go into a convenience store and Candy shoots the breeze with the owner, an OG called Mr. Mack (played by rapper Bun B), who’s now retired from the game to become a shopkeeper. Though Cody does meet someone significant there, in terms of the film, it’s not very important. However, it’s just a nice exchange, and the film has a number of others. They’re rarely dull, and it generally avoids getting bogged down in cliche. Eventually, we do find out that corrupt cop Soso (Smith) is planning to take out Candy and her crew, as they prepare that mainstay of gang films: a big score. In this case, shipping tons of drugs to St. Louis.

It’s just a shame the plot hadn’t been there from the beginning. Perhaps I’m too used to my narconovelas, which go to the other extreme, arguably cramming in too much. But even the way in which the climax here is resolved, is rather unsatisfying, relying on what feels like a bit of a cheat, and being based on information withheld from the audience. It’s a shame, as the framework is in place for something better than most of these urban films I’ve seen, such as Jack Squad or the cinematic hell which was Hoodrats 2. On the basis of this, how Candy came to be where she was, for example, might have been a more interesting story than what she did once she got there.

Dir: Nahala Johnson
Star: Sheneka Adams, Gina Caliste, Kendrick Smith, Jessica Kylie

Sweet Justice (2009)

  By

★★
“In need of significant support.”

Four women run a charitable agency in Texas, helping single mothers track down and obtain child support payments from deadbeat dads. However, they don’t limit themselves to the simple serving of legal papers. The women adopt a more… hands-on approach, shall we say, first luring their targets in with the promise of sex, then threatening them at gunpoint, to make sure they pay up. For obvious reasons, the cops soon take interest in this string of unusual armed robberies. Meanwhile, the city’s white mayor, is dealing with a domestic crisis of her own, thanks to her daughter having had a child by (gasp!) a black man.

Y’know, woeful though this is in many ways, I actually somewhat respect the intent and the topic: at least its heart is in the right place. It seems like I have seen a lot of female vigilante films of late, and too many of them seem to descent into undiluted man-hating. This does a better job than most of avoiding that. There are times when the agency’s female clients are actually wrong, identifying the wrong man as their “baby daddy”, and some men are actually trying to do the right thing as well, such as the father of the mayor’s grandchild. It’s all considerably more even-handed than I expected, and does a decent job of highlighting just how screwed-up the current system is, failing almost everyone involved. However, social commentary, no matter how well-intentioned, is generally pretty low on the list of things I’m looking for on this site.

It doesn’t help that the execution is laughable in most regards, with few of those involved in front of the camera giving any indication of being genuine professionals. To be fair, the actresses generally come off slightly better than the “actors,” who appear to be a selection of wannabe rappers. But the story is ridiculously implausible as well, and morally dubious, too: is armed robbery really an appropriate and measured response to failure to pay child support? You’ll definitely have time to consider such things, during the many slacker-paced scenes. The cops are spectacularly incompetent too, though this is stupidity necessary to the plot, otherwise the vigilante squad would be locked up inside fifteen minutes. This perhaps therefore deserves slightly more slack.

There isn’t even any particular escalation or closure to be seen here. The sole thread which gets properly resolved involves the mayor, who eventually comes to terms with her grandchild’s parentage, and quits the re-election race in favour of her family. That’s nice. The vigilantes just continue on their serene way, as if this were some kind of pilot for a banal TV series. It all feels less like a coherent or interesting feature film, than an excuse for the director to hang out with a few of his pals and some local musicians. To anyone outside that clique, there’s little here of interest, and it’s certainly as forgettable as its remarkably generic title.

Dir: Arthur Muhammad
Star: Tammy Thomas, Reagan Gomez-Preston, Shannon Ashe, Z-RO
a.k.a. Black Angels

SheChotic

  By

★½
“You’ll need a break.”

Within about two minutes of starting this, I realized I had made a terrible mistake, and was watching something barely reaching the amateur level of film production. Still, I soldiered on – albeit for some loose definition of “soldiered” – until the bitter end, mostly so I could issue an informed warning about this to any prospective viewers. Maxine (Mitchell) is rather upset when she discovers her boyfriend, music video producer Lance (Watts) has been cheating on her with Lana (Bryant). Mind you, she’s clearly a bit unhinged already: for example, telling him she’s pregnant when she isn’t. So it’s not much of a surprise when her reaction to his two-timing is to kidnap Lance, tie him up in her basement and submit him to various indignities, along with seeking revenge on Lana. Which, apparently, includes sleeping with her father (Walker).

If this all sounds like completely ludicrous and implausible nonsense… I have done my job as a reviewer, because that’s exactly what it is, buttressed by poor audio quality, questionable directorial decisions (the conversation where the camera spins around the participants like a hyperactive house-fly was an especially dubious choice) and a final twist which managed to be both out of left field and entirely predictable at the same time. About the only thing which I did quite like, was the way Maxine’s personality splits into two distinct characters. One is urging her on to do ever more malicious deeds, while the other is trying to take a higher moral path. Surprisingly – considering the ineptness everywhere else – it’s decently handled on both sides of the camera. Even if I doubt anyone ever thought, “I want an erotic thriller which largely avoids actually nudity, with a black, female version of Gollum in it,” this aspect is likely responsible for this avoiding a dreaded and rarely awarded one-star rating.

I was amused by the po-faced disclaimer from the director which opens this: “Due to my strong convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses support of violence, abuse against women or other subject matter that may be considered offensive.” Several points come to mind. Firstly, if you have to add a disclaimer to your film like that, you’re doing it wrong. Secondly, it’s little more than empty virtue signaling anyway: It’d be far more notable if a director stated “I wholeheartedly endorse violence.” Thirdly, any abuse here is far more by women: what is Mr. Fiori’s stance on that? Sadly, it appears we will never know, save for the unlikely event of there being a SheChotic 2. Fourthly and finally, it’s never a good sign when the text which starts your movie is worthy of deeper analysis and commentary than 95% of what follows it. Though if it had instead simply read, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” it would certainly have been equally valid.

Dir: Leandre Fiori
Star: Erica Mitchell, Robert D Watts, Brittany Bryant, Jason Walker