Since the 1975 release of instant black movie classic “Cooley High,” every decade has included a concerted effort to capture the current angst of urban teens on film.
1990’s babies are lucky that Rick Famuyiwa has stylishly rolled them all into one for “Dope,” which opens nationwide on Friday, June 19. He did his homework and tipped his hat to the urban youth subgenre, while creating a film that felt all his own.
Special attention is given to the 1990s – an unofficial urban youth cinema renaissance that gave birth to the likes of “House Party,” “Juice,” “Menace II Society” and Academy Award-nominated “Boyz N The Hood.”
In “Dope,” central character Malcolm leads a trio of unlikely misfit punk rockers obsessed with the decade’s hi-top fades, the colorful clothes and, most importantly, the hip-hop.
They manage to operate in a self-contained counterculture of “Yo! MTV Raps” VHS recordings and vintage video games as the world carries on without them in Inglewood, California.
Malcolm is an overachieving student from an underperforming high school who has boldly set his sights on Harvard. Then, in a twist of unforeseen circumstances, Malcolm and his crew are forced to engage in the very behavior and lifestyle they’ve consciously avoided amidst the traps that await them on every corner.
“Dope” showcases the grime of hood life without weighing the audience down with it. The film humanizes the formulaic clichés of the “boy trying to escape the hood” story. It even manages to be light in lieu of the circumstances that create the conflict and drama.
With this film, Famuyiwa raised the bar he set with his filmmaking debut in 1999 with “The Wood” and 2002’s “Brown Sugar.” Ahead of its nationwide release, “Dope” carries the reputation of being the darling of the Sundance Film Festival and an official selection at Cannes, all with a cast of mostly unknowns.
Although he comes off as more cheesy than even the biggest nerd the hood ever produced, Shameik Moore delivers a solid performance as Malcolm. Most of the kinks seen in his first starring role will be ironed out with age and experience.
Kiersey Clemons delivers an especially noteworthy and well-rounded performance as Diggy, Malcolm’s his gender-bending “ride or die” partner in crime.
But the most promising performance surprisingly comes from rapper A$AP Rocky for his portrayal as Dom. His feature film debut as a charismatic and intelligent young drug dealer who clearly lost the hood battle between good and evil was extremely impressive. He just might follow the likes of Ice Cube – and even Will Smith – with a foray into acting.
“Dope” is at times preachy, stating the obvious in an attempt to reinforce positive messages when the film gets thick into its underworld elements. “I don’t want to go to jail, I want to go to college,” one character yells out. The film turns into an absolute sermon at the end, more than likely to offset the imagery and actions of the characters. Audiences are essentially failed by the final frames of the film.
But they will have been on such a wild and entertaining ride with Famuyiwa’s band of young misfits that they’ll charge it to the game – and still leave singing the praises of “Dope.”
“Dope” opens in theatres nationwide on Friday, June 19. The film is rated R with a running time of 115 minutes.
