:
Ben Crowley,
Ben Crowley,
Ken Leung,
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Spike Lee,
Spike Lee
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: 
: Showtime Entertainment
: 113 min.
: English, Spanish
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Recently Rented By DLeonard
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Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee makes the leap from the big screen to the small screen for this Showtime drama concerning the battle waged between black, white, an Asian gangs for control of the San Francisco streets. A modern-day melting pot that has become home to some of the vicious street-gangs in the country, San Francisco is a city teeming with racial tension. When each gang lays claim to the streets in a desperate bid to establish their turf, the simmering tensions soon boil to the surface in a violent eruption of murder and chaos. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
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by alexjb
May 1, 2006 - 12:47 AM PDT
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1 out of 1 members found this review helpful
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i'm rating this pretty low because it's a significant let down. either spike is getting lazy in his old age, or something else went horribly awry with this joint.
the 'murder and chaos' is significantly lacking in chaos, and even energy. the problem is that it's weak all around - plot, dialogue and characters.
the plot doesn't go anywhere; tho it seems to be on a rise to a confrontation, it fizzles before it peaks.
the dialogue in many scenes is *painfully* bad - "this is the scene where Keith plays Dad to the younger black man"... "this is the scene where the white guy rages at having to move to the black neighborhood"
the characters are sometimes believable, and sometimes sympathetic, but sometimes completely in-credible, and hispanics have an absurdly small role, considering the presence that they have in the city.
the take away message is muddled - i don't feel like i got much insight into any one of the groups, nor really how they intersect.
aside from being mildly interesting as perhaps the only gansta film set in san francisco, i was seriously disappointed by this.
*** i just researched and realized that this was done as a 2 hour pilot for a show that didn't make it. as the setup for a series, this has a bit more potential than it does as a film. it's the set up for a much longer story arc, obivously, so my plot critique would have to be lightened. it's still weak in dialogue and characterization, tho, and not worth watching as a standalone film. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 4.93)
14 Votes
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