Dope (2015)
Dope is an Indie darling that made an impact at Sundance this year and managed to grab the attention of several distributors. The local Wherenberg theaters are running a promotion of $5 movie tickets every Tuesday so I figured I'd give this film a chance.
Dope is the story of three high school geeks growing up in Inglewood, CA. Malcolm, Jib and Diggy (Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, and Kiersey Clemons respectively) are bullied by their peers for being nerds in an environment that is unwelcoming to their affectations, which they explain in the energetic first few minutes are "white people things" to enjoy.
Through a series of somewhat silly events, Malcolm winds up with a bag full of drugs that he must sell, despite none of them having the social clout or know-how to embark on such an endeavor.
Dope is often times funny and touching, but it was far from a perfect film. While the three leads are wonderfully charismatic and, IMO, should be fast-tracked to stardom, the film has some pacing issues that really held it back from being a great film. It is a worthy coming-of-age tale that I can solidly recommend, I often found myself wishing some scenes and jokes were shortened. Director Rick Famuyiwa uses every trick in the book from rapid edits to slow motion to split screen to reversed footage in scenes that breathe life into the film, while treating other sequences with all the style of a prime-time sitcom. I found myself wishing for more stylistic choices and a tighter edit more often than not.
The story is, also, a tad uneven, ranging from silly to serious to touching, but those extreme changes never bothered. It always felt like a nice cohesive tale, despite the occasional shifts in tone.
Dope is fun, funny, and plenty enjoyable, even if it doesn't live up to the film festival hype that surrounded it earlier this year. You can do worse than to give this one a chance, especially if you're a fan of the coming-of-age sub genre of films (which I am
).
One last note, I really, truly loved the kids in this film. Moore, Revolori (who you know from The Grand Budapest Hotel), Clemons and Zoe Kravitz (playing Malcolm's out-of-reach love interest) are all simply delightful. This is the first time I've really been impressed with Kravitz, though the last few roles I've seen her in were The Hunger Games. Mad Max, and X-Men which didn't allow for a ton of range on her part. Shameik Moore was in a goofy show my son loved on Cartoon Network a few years back called Incredible Crew. It was a silly skit show for kids reminiscent of You Can't do That on Television. The show was goofy as all hell and geared toward a young audience, but, even then, Moore was always amusing and this film proves that he is worthy of leading comedic roles. I hope they all have strong careers ahead of them.
Reply to Topic
