Dope (2015)

Dope (R)

"Slippery Slope N(word)"

From the slums of Englewood comes the story of Malcolm, a geeky straight A student trying to get into Harvard.  At times joyfully refreshingly new, others painfully derivative, Dope is at the least an interesting new voice supplied by a new actor in a landscape of bland dull remakes of whitewashed Hollywood entertainment.

Dope begins with a 90s HipHop nostalgia, a groovy kind of energy that introduces us to Malcolm's world of the hood, a place where you can get shot for no reason but also most people don't.  It's not a gloomy, trash ridden cess pit, it's a place where real people live and eat food and kids form punk bands and dream of escaping.  Where not every household is broken (though quite a few are), and not every car is a low rider (just some), not every black man is a thug (but watch your backpack).  Malcolm is not your average black kid either.  Played with geeky-awkward-perfection by new comer Shameik Moore, Malcolm like many of his peers, must at some point give up his Yo MTV Raps childhood and make some tough life decisions.  This is of course the point of the film, but is also where it loses much of it's fun.

Imagine if SuperBad stopped goofing and laughing about halfway though because it was time for "the point," and you have the toughest selling point of Dope.  Now, there is no contention that a kid in Malcolm's hood, his age with his situation wouldn't run afoul of some hard choices.  However the way it is handled is a bit nonsensical and confusing, and is quite a shock going from a happy-go-lucky "myfriendsarecoolbutIwantagirlfriend&nevermetmydad" to drug dealing bitcoin memes stand ins.  The motivations to do so are unclear, and the tacked on romantic angle is exactly that, tacked on because every film has that.  On the other hand, there really isn't another film like this, with this strong of an African-American voice and music and fashion, that is respectful and realistic and un exaggerated.  And yet it also dips into amateurish tropes (the cliche white guy hacker/stoner, the dropped subplots loss of focus, the aformentioned romantic subplot, the sometimes dippy dialogue of the other characters) muddles the message and also sometimes fumbles the humor.  However the acid washed sunsets and dayglo sneaker design of the production and a solid cinematographic base lend much to it's Indy cred.  Like Do The Right Thing the preachiness that, yes, preaches the ending must be allowed since a young man like Malcolm so infrequently allowed a soapbox to kick it from.

7 Gotta Say it was a Good Day out of 10 (GOOD)