My pathetic suburban mind can’t help but be drawn to these gritty, early 90’s crime dramas that show people with nothing to lose somehow losing everything because of their own action or inaction. I don’t think that this one rises to the heights of stories like New Jack City or Paid in Full, but I still love spending time in this 80’s hangover of a city and following this cast of characters through their limited misadventures.
Omar Epps is always great but this performance was particularly emotionally revealing, and it makes me wonder if Hollywood was too racist to give him a fair chance, or if there was another reason for him not being a more major player in the 2020’s. Tupac was a great heel and he pulled off this kind of menacing really well! I wasn’t familiar with Jermaine Hopkins (Steele) or Khalil Kain (Raheem) before this, but I thought they brought enough believability and realism to the parts that their crew felt plausible.
This seems like a movie that wants you to feel bad after watching it, and I guess it would have had that effect if it were the first story like this I had seen as a teen or something, but as a grown man who has sought out these kinds of stories for the last 15ish years, I just love a breezy, sub-2 hour rise(?) and fall story and can’t help but walk away a bit pumped to have added a new film to the knowledge of the genre!
A bit of an abrupt ending, but I also felt like the story had run out of runway, so I get it! Still had fun, and recommend to fans of 90’s crime canon or those interested in character studies on desperation and what it can do to young men!
My pathetic suburban mind can’t help but be drawn to these gritty, early 90’s crime dramas that show people with nothing to lose somehow losing everything because of their own action or inaction. I don’t think that this one rises to the heights of stories like New Jack City or Paid in Full, but I still love spending time in this 80’s hangover of a city and following this cast of characters through their limited misadventures.
Omar Epps is always great but this performance was particularly emotionally revealing, and it makes me wonder if Hollywood was too racist to give him a fair chance, or if there was another reason for him not being a more major player in the 2020’s. Tupac was a great heel and he pulled off this kind of menacing really well! I wasn’t familiar with Jermaine Hopkins (Steele) or Khalil Kain (Raheem) before this, but I thought they brought enough believability and realism to the parts that their crew felt plausible.
This seems like a movie that wants you to feel bad after watching it, and I guess it would have had that effect if it were the first story like this I had seen as a teen or something, but as a grown man who has sought out these kinds of stories for the last 15ish years, I just love a breezy, sub-2 hour rise(?) and fall story and can’t help but walk away a bit pumped to have added a new film to the knowledge of the genre!
A bit of an abrupt ending, but I also felt like the story had run out of runway, so I get it! Still had fun, and recommend to fans of 90’s crime canon or those interested in character studies on desperation and what it can do to young men!
