Monday, June 22, 2015

Review: Dope

by Adam Riske
Dope is dope and frustrating too.

I went into Dope really wanting to like it because it's writer-director Rick Famuyiwa’s latest and he made a movie I loved back in 1999 called The Wood. I’m always rooting for this guy based on that one movie. Is Dope as good as The Wood? No, but it's good and worth your time. Dope shares many of the same elements as The Wood. Both are coming-of-age stories that take place in Inglewood, CA, and are centered on good kids who find themselves sometimes thrust into dangerous situations. If The Wood is more innocent it’s largely a reflection of the time, as that movie took place in the 1980s and Dope is reflecting the Inglewood of 2015.

Famuyiwa knows the neighborhood really well and that authenticity lends a great deal of personality to Dope. This is a movie that is very alive and vibrant, from its performances to the photography to its pretty great soundtrack. If Dope doesn’t quite always work it’s not because of the technical aspects of its filmmaking or the acting. It’s largely due to the script, which is my major concern. It has some really strange messages (if I’m reading them correctly – more on that later) that make me uncomfortable, but is that the fault of the filmmaker or more a reflection of my personal taste as a viewer?
The plot in brief: Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is a geek surviving life in “The Bottoms” area of Inglewood, CA, a tough neighborhood filled with gangsters and drug dealers. Unlike many of his peers, Malcolm and his friends Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) and Jib (Tony Revolori) are early '90s hip hop-obsessed high school seniors dealing with their SATs, college applications and interviews. Malcolm dreams of attending Harvard and is acting on the straight and narrow. After a chance invitation to a drug dealer’s party (Malcolm is after a girl who is attending the party), he finds himself in possession of a large amount of drugs that need to be sold or it could cause massive repercussions for Malcolm and his friends.

Dope shares many elements with some movies I love. It’s about good kids in a bad neighborhood like the super underrated House Party, it’s about novices caught up in the drug game like Go and it’s about a relatively meek and innocent young man in the middle of a very bad and increasingly surreal day like After Hours. It succeeds in those elements, and I liked Dope’s approach at being a lighthearted comedy with jolts of grittiness (though there’s a violent gag involving a Gameboy that is in bad taste and could have easily been excised). The movie is usually original, lively and fun. Dope reminds me so much of an MTV Films movie that the fact it isn’t one almost is very surprising. It’s Better Luck Tomorrow but played more as a comedy. Dope has MTV Films in its DNA. It’s energetic, stylish, fast-paced, very slick and entertaining.
The acting is also worth noting, led by a very charismatic performance by the newcomer Shameik Moore in the lead role as Malcolm. Largely due to Moore’s performance, Malcolm is always someone you can empathize with even when he’s doing things you don’t want his character to be doing. You understand he’s doing them because he has little choice. Shameik Moore is someone I’m looking forward to seeing in more movies, as well as his co-star Kiersey Clemons, who is very pretty and likable in her role as his pal Diggy. The Grand Budapest Hotel’s Tony Revolori (he played Zero) is solid too, and it’s nice to see him be able to hold his own in a movie less affected than that great work from Wes Anderson. Also worth noting are the performances from rapper A$AP Rocky as one of the dealers. He has a good screen presence and almost steals his scenes with Moore, including a great one where he reveals Moore as being a poser. Also strong is Roger Guenveur Smith (from many Spike Lee movies) who is subtly creepy in his couple of scenes, especially one where he uses Amazon.com as a metaphor for selling drugs. It’s a mustache twirling bad-guy performance but one I found very entertaining.

I do have some complaints about Dope that I’d like to address. First, the movie is rarely funny which I think it’s trying to go for the majority of the time. That’s ok. I’ve seen enough comedies that are good despite being unfunny where that doesn’t really bother me that much anymore. My major complaint instead is the movie’s confused and weird messages. I’m not sure what the movie’s intention is in its character arc for Malcolm and its story arc. It suggests that the only way for a guy like Malcolm (African-American and from a rough neighborhood) is for him to get dirty and sell drugs. The movie posits that this is life experience and character building and I had a problem with that. It might just be the point of view of this one filmmaker and the story of this one protagonist, but it’s troubling in a way. I can’t believe this was Famuyiwa’s intention...or was it? But is that the filmmaker’s burden? Should he have to be as moralistic as I am as a viewer? Of course not. Because of the mixed messages, though, I’m really perplexed as to what this movie is supposed to be about and that’s a sign of weak storytelling.
Despite being somewhat frustrating, Dope is unpredictable, original, trying to do something new and has a lot on its mind – even if I’m not entirely clear what that is. It’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen about being a nerd and the social schemes that one falls into being that as a label. It has definite thoughts on how nerd culture helps bridge racial (black and white) and socioeconomic gaps (Inglewood to Harvard). I like that the movie posits that being a nerd is possibly vital for the career trajectory of someone like Malcolm, allowing him to play “the game” all that much more fittingly. And yet the movie rarely becomes preachy, save for one problematic video speech at the end of the movie. Dope is more about being a good time than anything else, and on that level Dope succeeds.

14 comments:

  1. I had a very similar response. Dope is one of those movies so brimming over with exciting talent that all these gripes are pretty easy to put aside. One thing you didn't mention are scenes depicting the protagonists "punk" band performing "live" and sounding like an over produced remix. Really frustrating.

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    1. I enjoyed there little garage band.

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    2. That's Pharrell for you. I think he wrote all of those songs, most of which I thought were decent.

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    3. Sorry dudes. I think I was misunderstood. I like the songs. I would have liked versions that sounded like they were being played by the group in screen and not a pentium processor.

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  2. I found the movie to be pretty funny. Wasn't a huge fan of where the book/ drug plot goes but I still found the movie to be very enjoyable. Im sure this will be a contender for my top 10 list at the end of the year. I look forward to seeing more of Shameik Moore. Also off the top of my head this was one of Zoe Kravitz better performances. I will admit it got a little preachy. In any case take a CG break and check it out.

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    1. I'm starting to crush on Zoe Kravitz but she reminds me of her mom so much that I find it distracting.

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  3. Adam did you catch the wood reference?

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  4. theres an exact point when you can see the movie switch from a character based odyssey to a movie more concerned with accomplishing a standard narrative goal. I'm talking about as soon as he realizes the interviewer is the drug dealer to about the next 25 minutes with all the bitcoins stuff. But then, BAM! were pulled right back in to this Boys in the Hood/Mean Streets kinda film when Malcolm takes out the gun. Then it finishes very strong I think with the overtly Spike Lee influenced monologue to the crowd. I thought that was very ballsy for a wide release in 2015. Kudos to the filmmaker and the studio.

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    1. See its that whole Bitcoin section thing that I wasn't a fan off. I like the section before that with the bookbag though.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. Oh, same here. (I'm anonymous^)

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  5. I found it absolutely riveting start to finish.

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