Well acted, but typical hip-hop movie

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2006)

Well, I'm not really sure what I thought of this one. Normally, this is the kind of movie I wouldn't even look twice at on the shelf in Blockbuster, but I'm trying to take in as many Oscar nominated films as I can this year. Like I said, I'm not totally sure what I thought about it. Terrence Howard doesn't by any means deserve the Oscar, but he definitely earned the nomination. Very well acted on everyone's part, actually. However, many scenes were pretty uneven in parts. For example, the scene near the end where he was talking with Key. At first, it was a pretty tense scene, Key seemed pretty upset and almost hurt. But after the little flashback with Nola, they were both happy as a clam. That kind of thing happened a lot, but that's the best example. There was also a bit of unfinished business with certain characters. Lexus just disappeared about half way through, and while she wasn't a great character anyway, it would have been nice to know what happened to her. Overall, it was a well made, well acted movie, but if you normally wouldn't be interested in this type of flick, don't bother with it.
6/10