An Embarrassing Hook

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2006)

Sometimes a movie is successful, engaging you but leaves you feeling dirty.
Sometimes a movie is well enough made to seem worthwhile but gives you nothing, nothing at all.
Sometimes a movie purports to be a genuine visit, an exploration in real, raw human dynamics from a world we wouldn't other wise see. This does advertise itself that way. And it is a fraud.
The "true" part is the story of the guy, the Memphis rapper who sold CDs out of the back of his car. He tricked his way into a meeting with the director  a polished white guy  and made a demo in 24 hours from scratch. That song won the Oscar prompting the ghetto/ trailerpark hoots half the world saw. That part is genuine, a man "making it."
But what false is everything else. Oh, I know folks get offended at the misogynism, but that's excusable here because that is the way most of the world runs. What is obnoxious is that we see a man "finding himself," following his path," and other sorts of soft notions about moving from irrelevance to a full life. The opening speech gives it to you in terms of dogs and man.
And we see him do so in the context of making the song that both redeems him and forms the sonic backdrop of the movie. It seems so genuine on screen: a whore finds her center to sing; a repressed producer finds his groove la la la. And our pimp finds untapped resources that must exist lest we wouldn't have a movie.
But in reality this is not the case. The top musical talent in Memphis (which is saying something) is turned to giving us what we see as genuinely from the man's soul but could never be. Never. And even if it were, does this song do anything but make your head bob for three minutes?
The acting is impressive, and we should give Singleton credit for that, I think. But what a waste these actors must have known this to be. We like it, but it is lies. We like it because it is lies. There is no genuine black culture any more. It is all packaged to be sold, pimped.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.