| Overall Grade: |
C- |
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| Story: |
C- |
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| Acting: |
C |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
B+ |
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not hating, but the message is all wrong
by Bethany (movies profile)
Jun 21, 2007
400
of
577 people found this review helpful
There are good things about this movie: the cinematogrophy, the look, even the music is decent. The acting & writing are NOT remarkable. We are suffering so much from a lack of good writing and acting (especially in "black" films) that anything that's OK gets heralded as fantastic. But it's not redeeming in any way. This is a movie about a man who goes from one unadmirable profession into another, selling weed, pimping women, choking one of them, shooting a man and going to jail along the way. The closing scene, when one of his hoes is chanting "Whoop that trick" to her infant daughter made my stomach turn. (Regardless of what anyone says, that's a horrible juxtaposition, and one that even if done intentionally to show the probable helplessness of the future of that child would still repell me.) None of the female characters have any real depth, and too much of the dialogue is cliched, predictable and obvious. DJay actually tells you, in case you missed it in all the advance billing, that he is "having a mid-life crisis." We should be able to figure that out on our own. The only scene that really works well is when he tries to get his demo to Skinny Black (Ludacris) because it shows Djay really is good at what he does, hustling. And that the hustle is the hustle, whether it's a demo or a trick that you're pushing. Up until then, he's just a broke down pimp scribblin' down rhymes of the ubiquitous note pad.
Black people will scamble to this movie, because we are so marginalized in film that we are hungry to see images of ourselves. Some white folks, like the critics, will herald this film because to them it is a humanizing picture, with a "pimp with a heart" (although I didn't see him that way) following the Horatio Alger formula of luck and pluck to get out of the hood. But the reality is, this film is only seen as good because there is a lack of good films to hold it accountable to. And Djay is only "complex" because he shows any feelings at all, and we don't see that enough from black characters. |
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