KICKS (B-minus) - This Bay Area product hearkens to the 1990s when the ultimate status symbol in some cities was a pair of Air Jordan sneakers. Here we follow a trio of teen pals on a mission to retrieve a stolen pair of the iconic basketball shoes.
Brandon (Jahking Guillory) is 15 and small for his age, but he grows a few feet in stature when he scores a black-market pair of original red Air Jordans for $200 from a sketchy street vendor. After he gets beat up by a street gang led by Flaco (Kofi Siriboe), he is determined to infiltrate the mean streets of Oakland to get them back.
He drags along his two buddies, chick-magnet Rico (Christopher Meyer) and dorky Albert (Christopher Jordan Wallace), both of whom are wary of navigating the inner city. Brandon tracks down an uncle, Marlon (Mahershala Ali, "Moonlight"), who has done hard time and knows how to handle the Flacos of the world. Brandon helps himself to a gun, and the second half is off and running.
New director Justin Tipping, writing the script with another freshman Joshua Beirne-Golden, has a neat, clean style. But the narrative too often feels more like a TV dramedy than a film. Tipping juggles light-hearted banter with legit thug-life behavior. But in the end, this comes of as more "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" than "New Jack City." You never get the sense that this will all end in peril or a sordid bloodbath.
One curious device has Brandon imagining an astronaut -- sometimes it's like an imaginary friend; other times he's the spaceman -- haunting scenes intermittently. It's a way of conveying Brandon's need for escape, for a better world, but Tipping never figures out a way to weave it into the story effectively. It's neither amusing nor touching, and thus it's mostly a distraction.
The lead trio of young actors try their best to banter and bond, but at times the dialogue seems forced. Tangential characters sometimes land on a word or turn of phrase that truly feel authentic. Guillory has an easy manner to him, and he is especially compelling when he's trying out his rookie moves on a few girls. He, too, is a relative newcomer, and he has the charisma and potential we saw with Royalty Hightower in "The Fits." Much here shows promise.
The soundtrack features a fairly tame sampling of rap and hip-hop. What's more interesting is a retro sound that sneaks in, as Charles Bradley chimes in with an R&B throwback"In You (I Found a Love)":
Our title track, quoting from Public Enemy's "Politics of the Sneaker Pimps":
No comments:
Post a Comment