This is a reprint of our review from the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
A coming of age tale for the post-hip hop and social media generation, a black geek picture for the Urkels and Kanye Wests of the world, a crime/drug caper, a comedy, a gettin’-out-of-the-ghetto film, and more, writer/director Rick Famuyiwa’s funny and vibrantly realized “Dope” packs in a lot of movie. Featuring a long, “Pulp Fiction”-like crime-comedy sprawl, with several story threads in the air, the movie also features a witty, sharp African-American cultural commentary a la “Dear White People.” And if that sounds dynamic, but a little overstuffed, that’s because it is.
But “Dope” starts out with fantastic energy, charm, and laughs. Centering on three friends in socio-economically challenged “The Bottoms” of Inglewood, California, the ‘90s hip hop culture obsessed trio of Malcolm (Shameik Moore), Jib (Tony Revolori), and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons), try to survive and get by. Malcolm, in particular, aspires for an education, dreaming of attending Harvard, and finding a way out of The Bottoms.
READ MORE: Watch A New Red Band Trailer For ‘Dope’ Plus 3 Clips
As the group of misfits try to navigate their social strata — they’re outcast nerds who also have a rowdy, punky hip hop band, while Diggy is a lesbian, which makes them even more removed from the status quo — they have to contend with bullies, bigots, drug dealers, gangsters, and more. Life gets complicated when a local drug slinger, Dom (rapper A$AP Rocky), recruits Malcolm to court Nakia (Zoë Kravitz), one of the local gorgeous honeys who also wants a future outside of the projects, for him.
These entanglements lead Malcolm and his friends to find some brief acceptance. When they’re invited to a dance party at Dom’s request, the night is exciting and exuberant, but when rival drug dealers crash the party, chaos erupts. In the madness, Dom hides his cocaine and guns in Malcolm’s backpack and the quest to retrieve the dope from various warring factions puts the adolescents in grave danger, setting off a series of wacky and perilous events.
Written and directed by Famuyiwa, “Dope” has much on its mind, from juggling genres, to commenting on the low expectations that society and teachers have for young African-American kids with few opportunities. Narrated by Forest Whitaker (also a producer), “Dope” pulsates with restless verve, ping-ponging around subjects and tangential observations about pop culture and adolescence like Tarantino on ecstasy. Its ADD discursiveness extends to our hyper-social media age. “Dope” flies through Twitter, YouTube, Gifs, internet memes, and more with hilarious dexterity (Michael Mann would also be proud of their use of TOR and darkweb back channels in some of the ridiculous, but amusing hacker scenes. Hacking scenes? Yes, this movie has everything).
The film’s snappy dialogue and rapid-fire pop culture annotations would probably make Kevin Smith, Drake, and RapGenius.com blush with envy. “Dope” manages to kinetically reference Neil Degrasse Tyson, myriad hip-hop touchstones (Digital Underground, Public Enemy, Jay-Z), “Game Of Thrones,” Coachella, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, and more.
But at 115 minutes, “Dope” is in need of serious taming. While it doesn’t lose its vivacious spark as much as some of the other Sundance films with brevity issues this year, somewhere inside “Dope” is a near-amazing movie. And “Dope” is kind of Jenga-like in its construction too. Even if a producer wanted to somehow chop this movie down to the 95-minute romp it should probably be, it likely can’t be dismantled too much without the entire structure tumbling down.
So “Dope” trips up a little bit, with too many endings (the Sundance 2015 curse), and the romantic subplot between Malcolm and Nakia feels forgotten by the time it concludes. As Malcolm uses his smarts and wit to outmaneuver the antagonists, Famuyiwa’s bloat becomes a bit silly and strained, but as most of it is played for laughs, these twists and turns don’t break the bank. While the script gets a bit didactic and scolding in its final moments, the big take away is the Yo! MTV Raps throwback playfulness the movie possesses in abundance.
A deep supporting bench doesn’t hurt either. Blake Anderson plays Will, a pot head genius who’s down and desperate to use the n-word — this little observational detour is hysterical — and Keith Stanfield (“Short Term 12”), Rick Fox, and Roger Guenveur Smith also appear.
Chock-a-block with super fly freshness, the good certainly outweighs the uneven. “Dope” is both intelligent and crowd-pleasing, and its vintage soundtrack (with new songs by Pharrell Williams too) will attract a wider crowd beyond an indie audience. Tackling the struggle of bad and worse choices that many of those in economically-challenged situations are afforded, “Dope” is about the dreams and aspirations of outsiders. While a little swollen narratively, its supercool vitality is much like Will Smith‘s blithe song “Summertime,” which the character’s reference: something very close to a new classic. [B+]
Last of all, Davey, try not to be such a condescending prick with too high of an opinion of yourself. Your third rate amateurish take on sociology and conditioning is laughable. You are nothing more than just another clueless idiot with a keyboard and access to the internet. Have a good life. Hell, try having a life period.
Next, Dave, your little story about the Africans you know don\’t impress anyone. And you are not revealing any secrets about how many Africans actively try to make a point of commenting that they are not like American blacks. Truth is many black immigrants, even from third world countries, have their attitude when they come to America. In large part that is because the Mainstream society has always painted a negative picture of African Americans to any and all newcomers, even if they are black. But interesting enough if African Americans travel to the same countries those black immigrants come from, they tend to be thought of better than the blacks of those nations. In other words the non-blacks likely will have a higher view of African Americans than they will of the native black people of those nations. I like to think of this as the The Blacks Are Always Greener On the Other Side mindset.
Second of all if all it takes to make such well crafted, mainstream films about African Americans is for studios to hire writers and directors who aren\’t African Americans, why then are virtually all the movies about African American life made by non African Americans just as shitty as those made by actual African Americans who lack "insight"? Where are all the classics by, say, white filmmaker tackling African American stories? Seems to me there aren\’t many examples of great work produced by non-black people that touches upon the lives of African Americans. And have you even seen Famuyiwa\’s earlier films? They can\’t exactly be considered being of high standards or "mainstream" either. In fact they are pretty pedestrian. By your own account by Famuyiwa being a first generation immigrant who was thus partially removed from the African American community he grew up in, he should have been able to knock it out of the park the first time he directed a motion picture. But he did not. He had to get better over time and learn his craft. 15 years later he is putting out his first truly acclaimed work. Or maybe he is finally being able to film a script about African Americans that he didn\’t have to get the green light permission from white studio execs who have no clue about African Americans in the first place
First of all….Dave, Famuyiwa had the hardest time getting this movie made. All the major studios rejected it because, according to him, it was not presenting black life in a way the white people running the studios were accustomed to. So he had to go independent. And this is a large reason why such so-called "mainstream" movie (as you put it) about African American life is so rare to find. It isn\’t as much as the people born within the community lack self awareness or insight. It is because white people don\’t see black folks as being just like them. They have a limited view of what life is like for black people. So when these folks run into filmmakers who present a view of African Americans that go against the norm, they reject it because it is too alien to them and doesn\’t fit the stereotypes already lodged in their heads.
And by the way, I was friends with several continental Africans, who before Obama became President, would consider it an insult if you called them Black. They wanted you to know that they did not share the cultural values of American Blacks.
So, when I say a culture has "merits", I mean there are things about it which advance the survival and fitness of the members of its group.
"Culture is culture. It does not have merits." Culture is a set of practices and beliefs passed on, usually because they advance a particular group\’s ability to survive. Black culture is poisoned by slavery and a legalized caste system that came after it, and so many of the cultural practices of American Blacks are adapted for survival in that kind of system, rather than the post 1960s system that the US has been attempting to set up.
Mainstream appeal means ability to appeal to people outside the narrow "black mindset" that limits many young Black people who grow up in America.
LOL Joe, I went to a majority Black high school. Working class, some working poor, a few ghetto hood rats. I know much more than you, I\’m willing to wager, about a great many things.
How do you know it has main stream appeal. It only has main stream appeal if it becomes main stream. Black culture has it\’s merits, contains so much ignorance and defensiveness? Culture is culture. It does not have merits. It is what is. You come off as very ignorant with your statements.It sounds like you get your idea of black culture from hip hop videos and what the mainstream media likes to show you.
It makes sense that one of the few films about African-American experiences that have mainstream appeal is by a director who is a child of African immigrants. Black culture has its merits, but its undercurrents still contain so much ignorance and defensiveness that most people born into it lack the awareness or insight to make a refreshing film about it. The director\’s immigrant values that he gets from his parents and his semi-outsider status as an African probably gave him enough space from the culture to not be blinded by it, as many other kids are.