Get your own Free Home Page
When people find out what I do for a living, they invariably say something like, “Ooh, that sounds like fun. I wish I could spend all my time going to movies.” (They used to say the same when I worked for The Open Book: “Ooh, I wish I could spend all my time sitting around reading.”) When they regain consciousness after being struck in the temple by a thesaurus, I try to impart the notion upon that they wouldn’t think so if they had to go see so much dreck and detritus. But the upside is, now and then good things turn up in unanticipated places.
Knowing fully well how white-bread fogey this might sound, I’ve come to expect little of most movies starring rappers. Despite some box office successes, the fact is they’re like any other musicians in that the ability to command a concert stage hardly guarantees capable presence in front of a ciné camera. Guys such as Ice-T and Ice Cube need to melt down a little and realize that “emote” means more than “sneer.” And while Will Smith is certainly a charismatic moviestar, it remains to be seen if he can handle a genuine dramatic challenge (which he’ll hopefully rise to meet next in The Legend of Bagger Vance). Fortunately, there are exceptions; Queen Latifah was excellent in one of my favorite films from 1998, Living Out Loud. And before the violence so prominent in his lyrics caught up with him, Tupac Shakur showed some potent acting chops in things such as Gridlock’d and Gang Related. But when I heard about In Too Deep, yet another ghetto nark story, co-starring LL Cool J as a cocaine lord, I didn’t exactly cancel a root-canal appointment to stand in line for the first show.
That’ll teach me to prejudge. The theme may be familiar, but rarely has it been done this convincingly. Omar Epps is Officer Jeff Cole, a rookie Cincinnati cop whose urban Cleveland upbringing inspires him to do something meaningful about inner-city crime. Right of out of the academy he pleas with top drug-cop Stanley Tucci for a shot at infiltrating the operation of a big-time trafficker (LL Cool J) with the smug audacity -- and muscle -- to call himself “God.” Cole turns out to be a natural, quick-thinking operator, and works his way so deeply undercover he ought to be wearing one of those “Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law” tags. He earns God’s trust, but after spending a couple years with guys who, like the Mafia, are sometimes good family men that lavish much time and money on their families and neighborhood while they’re also torturing errant employees tied to a pool table, when the moment of truth came I honestly had no idea which way Cole’s loyalties would play out.
Based on a true story, In Too Deep succeeds on strength of the unlikely combination of street-credible stars with little known Australian art-house director Michael Rymer, working from a script co-written by Michael Henry Brown (Dead Presidents). Rather than play up the action quotient, Rymer relies on tense chemistry between his actors, as did director Mike Newell with Johnny Depp and Al Pacino in the similarly themed, similarly-real mob story, Donnie Brasco. Even the usually overpowering rap soundtrack is toned down, confined mostly to the opening and closing credits, so you don’t have to stuff popcorn in your ears to get through the bleeding-brain stuff.
To date, most of the successful crossover success enjoyed by films that might otherwise have gotten pigeonholed by an African-American stamp have been what would probably be considered chick flicks, such as Waiting to Exhale, Eve’s Bayou, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Following this and their engaging respective performances in The Wood and Deep Blue Sea, Omar Epps and LL Cool J seem to be hinting they’ve learned that, by turning down the volume a little, there might be a bigger audience ready to give them a listen, too. B
Get your own Free Home Page