Vondie Curtis-Hall 1997 USA
Starring: Tupac Shakur, Tim Roth, Thandie Newton, Lucy Liu, Bokeem Woodbine
Earlier this week I pitched an idea on my Facebook account for a series of mini-projects on here based around particular actors, with an aim to both get to see more of their work and end up with a 'what to watch' list for each one. Having realised recently that I hadn't actually seen much of either my first choices were Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton, although I also considered the Indian actress Aishwarya Rai as I think her journey from being hired due to her Miss World win to becoming one of the best and most reliable actresses in all of Bollywood would be really interesting to investigate. Before I started though I thought I'd ask if there were any requests; responses were varied. One person, for example, suggested Nicolas Cage and was swiftly told to sit in the corner and think about what they'd done but another proposed a search for good films starring rappers, or at least good performances from rappers. As the most unique and slightly bizarre idea offered it was one I couldn't help but take up; my only proviso being that the most obviously shit films would be discounted and his, that Will Smith and Marky Mark Wahlberg would still be considered even if their contributions to either field are pretty questionable. After doing a little research Vondie Curtis-Hall's Gridlock'd seemed like as good a place to start as any, the thought of Tupac Shakur, Tim Roth and Thandie Newton as a heroin-addicted jazz band whose attempts to get clean are destroyed by pointless governmental bureaucracy far more appealing than Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear. I was wrong, this is an awful film. To be fair to Shakur though he is the best part of it (aside from Newton's singing that is), his Spoon imbued with a level-headed everyman sympathy, at least at the start. By the end (in the best scene of the film) he's begging Roth's hopeless, unpleasant Stretch to stab him in the vain hope that if he's admitted to hospital the authorities will have to relent and help him get clean. It's a genuinely upsetting moment but one that's almost played for comedy regardless. The main problem is writer/director/actor Hall, here juggling three hats even though he's barely competent with one. As a writer he seems unsure whether his script is a social satire or a dumb crime caper, souring what could be a disturbing drama about the lack of help afforded addicts with a hackneyed sub-plot featuring Spoon and Stretch being pursued by a gangster they've crossed earlier in the film. At one point he even has the pair stumble across the bodies of their dealers, one of whom is a pregnant woman played by an astonishingly wooden Lucy Liu, and, although initially shocked, they soon sit at the table, crack wise and shoot up, the blood and brain matter up the walls apparently of little concern. The few good moments, like having a political commentator on TV announcing a debate called "America: Love it or get the hell out" or the tense discussion of race and why Stretch thinks he's black, are entertaining but really nothing that hasn't been done better before. As a director meanwhile he's heavy-handed with every flashback (and there are a lot) signalled by a couple of seconds of blue light just so we get the message. By the time he turns up as clichéd wank-fantasy gangster D-Reper he's playing Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly on the soundtrack, referencing the Blaxploitation film of the same name, apparently either unaware of its controversial glorification of drug-dealers or glorying in it for his amusement. It's such a shame because Hall's premise is fascinating and original and, if it had been handed over to a better director and tweaked, it could have made for a far superior film. Still, it's not the worst thing he's done in his career - he also directed the Mariah Carey-starring disaster Glitter, a crime for which he should be punched to the ground and banned from the occupation for life.
RAPPERS IN FILM
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