Movie Review Black Los Angeles

BlackNLA Movie Reviews

*****THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*****

by Edwardo Jackson

BIASES: late 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare

WAIST DEEP (R)

MOVIE BIASES: Remember THE REEL DEAL "don't like black movies."

MAJOR PLAYERS: Tyrese Gibson (Four Brothers), Meagan Good (Eve's Bayou), Larenz Tate (Menace II Society), The Game (rapper), and co-writer/director Vondie Curtis Hall (Gridlock'd)

It's summertime: the weather's getting hotter, the skirts are getting shorter. So are attention spans and standards. With my annual anticipation of all things action-oriented, I've been looking forward to a film that embraces all those big screen excesses that the summer months afford. Time to wade in and get "Waist Deep."

Recently paroled two strikes felon O2 (Gibson) gets wickedly carjacked in broad daylight on the streets of South (Central) LA. An even bigger problem: his young son (H. Hunter Hall) was in the car. Employing the talents of the sexy clothes hustlin' Coco (Good), who helped set him up to get jacked, O2 goes about trying to secure the $100,000 ransom demanded by the nefarious (and mellifluously named) Big Meat (The Game) in two days' time by willfully plunging himself in the middle of
a gangland turf war. Aiding - or is he hindering - the cause is O2's undependable cousin Lucky (Tate), who's got Meat-y problems of his own. With his feverishly knocking over banks and playing neighborhood stick-up kid, will O2 be able to live up to the promise he gave his son ("I'll always come back for you.")?

Believe it or not, this movie actually made me care about the answer. A sometimes implausible but rousingly gritty hood flick, the wonderfully LA-centric "Waist" (Wessssside!) gets about as deep as a Michael Bay shoot-em up - and I don't mind one bit. Set against an anti-violence, is-blood-thicker-than-water theme yet still indulging in tons of gunplay and gratuitous profanity, "Waist Deep" is a movie
at war with itself, but agreeably so. The Darin Scott/Vondie Curtis Hall script - vice-filled, ebonics-laden, bullet-riddled - isn't very sophisticated dialogue-wise, but some of the most entertaining ones aren't, are they? It is, however, clever and energetic while offering more than passing commentary on the deep and wide schism between LA whites and blacks, the haves and have-nots (driving down Sunset Blvd.
for the first time, LA native Coco says, "Damn. This [stuff's] like a whole other world."). Establishing a nice, brisk tempo, Hall does a fine job of lusciously keeping black folks in frame. Definitely not an up with people film that's going to win any Image Awards, "Waist Deep" doesn't pretend to be anything it's not - it's just a straight up, hip hop-based hood banger.

Good thing then that Watts-reared Tyrese is on board. Filling the bill - and lens - with his blackboard cool skin restrained by a simple white 'beater, Tyrese gives his most authentic, quietly charismatic performance to date. Sporting pouty, two-toned lips, Daisy Dukes, and heels stacked three stories tall to make her short frame seem to stretch out like the 405 freeway, Meagan Good, at least visually,
surpasses her name, with the former child actress fully enjoying her several sex bomb moments. She is all grown up now, as her character Coco, a onetime single mother and product of the damaged foster care system, is an attitudinal, chain-smoking hoodrat. While Good isn't consistently believable as an around-the-way girl, she IS consistently "good" to look at, with us being privy to the love affair between her and Hall's camera. Larenz Tate, another LA native, is eminently
believable/watchable as that screw-up cousin that we ALL have while The Game's snarling film debut is brutal, harsh, but effective in a limited role (think a one-eyed, Nino Brown wannabe - with a machete). Oh yeah, and there's a laughable cameo by Kimora Lee Simmons as well.

Having such strong opinions, I get a lot of criticism myself: "Why don't you do half REELS?" "THE REEL DEAL don't like black movies!" Well, I don't do half REELS because I think they're copouts: either something is or something isn't: you can't be a little bit pregnant. But if there were ever a movie that screamed for a 1/2 REEL policy change, it would be this one (not happening). As far as my perpetual defense against the shortsightedness that is "THE REEL DEAL don't like black movies," I offer "Waist Deep" as yet another so-called black movie that I actually DO like (altogether now: "I don't like BAD movies; Hollywood makes a disproportionate amount of them that are black."). Where's the outrage when I give Lindsay Lohan's "Just My Luck" the same, thoroughly deserved rating as "Madea's Family Reunion"
(0 REELS)?

Sure, this flick's got problems. A cheesy, albeit earned ending that's about as plausible as a unicorn race. Somewhat superfluous but realistic use of F-bombs and N-words. And, of course, not the most flattering portrait of our people in our most commonly media-reinforced economic state.

But this movie ain't about all that. I don't care what anyone says - "Waist Deep" is MY guilty pleasure. This is the type of film where people smoke and cuss, illegally discharge firearms, and nobody goes by their given name (O2, Coco, Big Meat, Lucky, Pookie and 'em...). Not every "black film" needs to be socially responsible (hell, many the Hollyhood gatekeepers let slip by are downright offensive). Like
ANY and EVERY film, it just needs to be ENTERTAINING. If your idea of entertainment is a pint-sized rapper on rollers who can't act or a 6'5" dude in drag throwing hot grits on people, well, bless your heart. You've obviously checked your brain at the box office - and so have I. So go ahead and valet park that cerebral cortex with "Waist Deep." It's summertime.

@@@ REELS
(THREE REELS)
It's pretty hot – go give it a shot.

Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com!

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com




			BlackNLA Movie Reviews ***THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*** by Edwardo Jackson BIASES: late 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare WAIST DEEP (R) MOVIE BIASES: Remember THE REEL DEAL "don't like black movies." MAJOR PLAYERS: Tyrese Gibson (Four Brothers), Meagan Good (Eve's Bayou), Larenz Tate (Menace II Society), The Game (rapper), and co-writer/director Vondie Curtis Hall (Gridlock'd) It's summertime: the weather's getting hotter, the skirts are getting shorter. So are attention spans and standards. With my annual anticipation of all things action-oriented, I've been looking forward to a film that embraces all those big screen excesses that the summer months afford. Time to wade in and get "Waist Deep." Recently paroled two strikes felon O2 (Gibson) gets wickedly carjacked in broad daylight on the streets of South (Central) LA. An even bigger problem: his young son (H. Hunter Hall) was in the car. Employing the talents of the sexy clothes hustlin' Coco (Good), who helped set him up to get jacked, O2 goes about trying to secure the $100,000 ransom demanded by the nefarious (and mellifluously named) Big Meat (The Game) in two days' time by willfully plunging himself in the middle of a gangland turf war. Aiding - or is he hindering - the cause is O2's undependable cousin Lucky (Tate), who's got Meat-y problems of his own. With his feverishly knocking over banks and playing neighborhood stick-up kid, will O2 be able to live up to the promise he gave his son ("I'll always come back for you.")? Believe it or not, this movie actually made me care about the answer. A sometimes implausible but rousingly gritty hood flick, the wonderfully LA-centric "Waist" (Wessssside!) gets about as deep as a Michael Bay shoot-em up - and I don't mind one bit. Set against an anti-violence, is-blood-thicker-than-water theme yet still indulging in tons of gunplay and gratuitous profanity, "Waist Deep" is a movie at war with itself, but agreeably so. The Darin Scott/Vondie Curtis Hall script - vice-filled, ebonics-laden, bullet-riddled - isn't very sophisticated dialogue-wise, but some of the most entertaining ones aren't, are they? It is, however, clever and energetic while offering more than passing commentary on the deep and wide schism between LA whites and blacks, the haves and have-nots (driving down Sunset Blvd. for the first time, LA native Coco says, "Damn. This [stuff's] like a whole other world."). Establishing a nice, brisk tempo, Hall does a fine job of lusciously keeping black folks in frame. Definitely not an up with people film that's going to win any Image Awards, "Waist Deep" doesn't pretend to be anything it's not - it's just a straight up, hip hop-based hood banger. Good thing then that Watts-reared Tyrese is on board. Filling the bill - and lens - with his blackboard cool skin restrained by a simple white 'beater, Tyrese gives his most authentic, quietly charismatic performance to date. Sporting pouty, two-toned lips, Daisy Dukes, and heels stacked three stories tall to make her short frame seem to stretch out like the 405 freeway, Meagan Good, at least visually, surpasses her name, with the former child actress fully enjoying her several sex bomb moments. She is all grown up now, as her character Coco, a onetime single mother and product of the damaged foster care system, is an attitudinal, chain-smoking hoodrat. While Good isn't consistently believable as an around-the-way girl, she IS consistently "good" to look at, with us being privy to the love affair between her and Hall's camera. Larenz Tate, another LA native, is eminently believable/watchable as that screw-up cousin that we ALL have while The Game's snarling film debut is brutal, harsh, but effective in a limited role (think a one-eyed, Nino Brown wannabe - with a machete). Oh yeah, and there's a laughable cameo by Kimora Lee Simmons as well. Having such strong opinions, I get a lot of criticism myself: "Why don't you do half REELS?" "THE REEL DEAL don't like black movies!" Well, I don't do half REELS because I think they're copouts: either something is or something isn't: you can't be a little bit pregnant. But if there were ever a movie that screamed for a 1/2 REEL policy change, it would be this one (not happening). As far as my perpetual defense against the shortsightedness that is "THE REEL DEAL don't like black movies," I offer "Waist Deep" as yet another so-called black movie that I actually DO like (altogether now: "I don't like BAD movies; Hollywood makes a disproportionate amount of them that are black."). Where's the outrage when I give Lindsay Lohan's "Just My Luck" the same, thoroughly deserved rating as "Madea's Family Reunion" (0 REELS)? Sure, this flick's got problems. A cheesy, albeit earned ending that's about as plausible as a unicorn race. Somewhat superfluous but realistic use of F-bombs and N-words. And, of course, not the most flattering portrait of our people in our most commonly media-reinforced economic state. But this movie ain't about all that. I don't care what anyone says - "Waist Deep" is MY guilty pleasure. This is the type of film where people smoke and cuss, illegally discharge firearms, and nobody goes by their given name (O2, Coco, Big Meat, Lucky, Pookie and 'em...). Not every "black film" needs to be socially responsible (hell, many the Hollyhood gatekeepers let slip by are downright offensive). Like ANY and EVERY film, it just needs to be ENTERTAINING. If your idea of entertainment is a pint-sized rapper on rollers who can't act or a 6'5" dude in drag throwing hot grits on people, well, bless your heart. You've obviously checked your brain at the box office - and so have I. So go ahead and valet park that cerebral cortex with "Waist Deep." It's summertime. @@@ REELS (THREE REELS) It's pretty hot – go give it a shot. Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com! Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com © 2004, Edwardo Jackson