Review: Weapons

A non-linear account of East L.A. twenty-somethings behaving badly, including multiple shootings. More specifically it focuses on two groups of losers; one white (college kid Mark Webber, his buddy Riley Smith, and video camera obsessed Paul Dano), and one black (somewhat responsible Nick Cannon, his buddy Jade Yorker, and Yorker’s kid brother Brandon Smith). Jason Smith has been accused of raping and beating Cannon’s kid sister (Regine Nehy) and so the trio want revenge for it. Events track back to a party the night before, and in fact the opening scene of one of the character’s being murdered by another in a hamburger joint occurs later in the story. Nehy, for her part, is meant to be dating Brandon Smith’s character and might not be all that reliable. Oh, and in addition to his video camera hobby, dateless loser Dano likes to carry around a shotgun. He’s also sick of being ignored and brushed aside, even by his best bud Riley Smith. An almost unrecognisable Arliss Howard turns up as a seriously shabby-looking drug dealer, in an inexplicable cameo.

 

This is a nihilistic, repugnant, and pointless little piece of excrement that makes you appreciate John Singleton’s perceptive “Boyz ‘N the Hood” even more. Oh this film definitely wants to be “Boyz” (not to mention influences in Gus Van Sant and Larry Clark), but it’s not even close. Originally made in 2007 (and screening at Sundance that year before languishing on the shelf for two years), this dreck from writer-director Adam Bhala Lough is an aimless excursion into some of the most unlikeable, uninteresting, and degenerative characters you’ll ever have the displeasure of meeting. Spending 90 minutes in the meaningless, dead-end lives of some drug-addicted losers, thugs, weirdos and degenerates is the exact opposite of what I call entertainment. However, Lough goes even further in alienating me by giving us endless scenes of gangbangers driving around wit’ their homies to start some shit, to the point where it almost approaches parody. I mean, what was this trying to be, “Crackers in da Hood”? “Alpha Dog 2”?

 

A pretentious, ugly, wannabe urban drama, I just couldn’t relate to any of this, let alone be entertained by any of it. If you loathed Van Sant’s rather detached “Elephant” and thought it was pointless, you’ll be skull-screwingly bored with this one. Maybe it resonates with someone out there as ultra-realistic but I found it unremittingly ugly and stupefyingly melodramatic. It didn’t seem real, it seemed a hyperbolic collection of every disaffected youth film cliché and gangsta rap stereotype that you could possibly think of, with a large slice of Singleton rip-off for good measure.

 

None of the actors are memorable, but I will say that the usually nerdy Paul Dano was surprisingly not miscast as a drug-addicted loser. Cannon’s character, meanwhile just doesn’t convince. Just because he’s got thug friends and he’s steamed up about his sister possibly being raped, doesn’t mean he’d suddenly turn into Doughboy for cryin’ out loud. I just wasn’t buying it. Then there’s the soundtrack that is a mixture of monotonous, distractingly noisy ambient sounds and industrial nonsense (it sounds like ‘white noise’ on a loop), and some awful hippity hop crap. It’s just ear-splitting noise from start to finish. The film opens up with a spectacularly gory image of Nick Cannon’s cheek being blasted into the camera via shotgun, and sadly that’s the best moment in the entire film. I was taken aback, though, by the appearance of veteran character actor Arliss Howard (“Men Don’t Leave”, “Plain Clothes”). He looked like a homeless person here, except his one scene takes place in a motel room.

 

At least “Boyz ‘N The Hood” had a point or two to make, the uneven “Alpha Dog” could claim to have been based on a true story, and even “Elephant” had an undeniably eerie quality, as underwritten as it might’ve been. By comparison, this one’s just a worthless poseur that only thinks it has something to say. It’s not just that it didn’t appeal to me, I couldn’t see how it would appeal to anyone. I mean, was there any point? At all? Is it that kids are stupid, drug-addicted thugs who live loser lives, beat women and get them up the duff? Why would I want to endure something like that for 90 minutes or so? Is it about the horrible cycle of violence? Been there, done that. Mind you, there’s probably some people out there who get their kicks from seeing Nick Cannon lose half his face, so there’s that. I found this to be a depressing, soul-sucking experience without any redeeming value (entertainment or otherwise) whatsoever.

 

Rating: D-