Rick Famuyiwa
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Connections, in both directions
In a series of misadventures reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s turn as a pimp in Risky Business, the trio turn to their chemistry and computer skills to move the Molly on the dark web, under the guidance of their Miyagi/Yoda, a stoner-hacker played by Blake Anderson.
It’s a frenetic piece brimming with references to other films, from a narrative similarity to “Risky Business” and “Go” to in-jokes of giving Kravitz the same hairstyle as Janet Jackson in “Poetic Justice.”
It’s also not a particularly novel coming-of-age movie, offering token inclusions of masturbation, prom, etc. It’s largely a drug-related caper somewhat reminiscent of adventures like “Risky Business” and “The Girl Next Door” in which shy kids get in over their heads.
The tone is fast and funny, with a modern “Risky Business” or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” vibe, but there’s an additional layer that stems from the violence of the neighborhood.
In a plot point reminiscent of Risky Business, all hell breaks out the week Malcolm is preparing for his interview to get into Harvard.
The film includes numerous references to early 1990s gangsta movies like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society , but in spirit it’s closer to Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , 1980s comedies about white teenage boys who go through a crazy adventure in a compressed time frame.
The movie, a hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, remarkably manages to share as much with John Hughes’ teen flicks of the ’80s, including a direct reference to Molly Ringwald, as it does with the “Boyz n the Hood” street dramas of the ’90s.
The film includes numerous references to early 1990s gangsta movies like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society , but in spirit it’s closer to Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , 1980s comedies about white teenage boys who go through a crazy adventure in a compressed time frame.
It pays homage to such early '90s hits as "Menace II Society," "Boyz N the Hood" and "Juice," but also strives to upend the stereotypes and tropes of those films.
He’s the soft-spoken virgin nerd straight out of the John Hughes playbook, only he’s curiously obsessed with ’90s hip-hop culture, which explains why he looks like Morris Chestnut circa 1991’s Boyz n the Hood.
You immediately think you’re in for a more technologically advanced take on John Singleton‘s Boyz n the Hood, but as the plot progresses, a sincere coming-of-age story rears its underprivileged head in the most unique way.
The story’s lead trio of misfit friends are “deeply obsessed with ’90s hip-hop,” yet “Dope” owes more to such white-cast teen movies as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Breakfast Club” than to such later, grimmer, youth-skewing “urban” films as “Boyz n the Hood” and “Menace II Society.”
Newcomer Shameik Moore shines with geeky gusto in a breakthrough role in the coming-of-age comedy/drama, which tackles racial stereotypes and 1990s culture as a kind of spiritual descendant of Friday and Do the Right Thing while still featuring a singular voice.
By invoking said nostalgia, Rick Famuyiwa harkens back to films like Do The Right Thing, in which racial tensions are explored expertly through what would normally pass itself off as a typical piece of entertainment.
It’s all of those things and none of them, never finding a reliable through line and both favorably and unfavorably evoking Spike Lee’s race relations classic “Do The Right Thing.”
There’s a little bit of Mookie, Spike Lee’s character in “Do the Right Thing,” in Malcolm’s observer-participant role, and maybe also a little bit of that Prince of Denmark that white dude wrote about that one time.
"Dope" isn’t exactly "The Breakfast Club," "Risky Business" or "Do the Right Thing," and yet in many ways it is.
The tone is fast and funny, with a modern “Risky Business” or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” vibe, but there’s an additional layer that stems from the violence of the neighborhood.
The film includes numerous references to early 1990s gangsta movies like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society , but in spirit it’s closer to Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , 1980s comedies about white teenage boys who go through a crazy adventure in a compressed time frame.
Actually, the strongest connection I see is to John Hughes films like “The Breakfast Club” or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” escapade-fueled teen films with a surprising amount on their minds.
It's a bit of John Hughes ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "The Breakfast Club") mixed with vintage screwball comedies.
The story’s lead trio of misfit friends are “deeply obsessed with ’90s hip-hop,” yet “Dope” owes more to such white-cast teen movies as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Breakfast Club” than to such later, grimmer, youth-skewing “urban” films as “Boyz n the Hood” and “Menace II Society.”
Edgy, hilarious and relatable regardless of age, Dope is the grit of John Singleton 's classic, the quirkiness of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and the polish of a Spike Lee joint, all with Rick Famuyiwa as the mastermind.
Between bouts of getting bullied, taking SATs and applying to schools, they shove themselves into a way-out-of-their-league underground birthday party at a hip-hop club which just so happens to be attended by Malcolm’s secret passion, sexy, math-challenged Nakia (Zoe Kravitz, deliberately channeling Poetic Justice-era Janet Jackson).
It’s a frenetic piece brimming with references to other films, from a narrative similarity to “Risky Business” and “Go” to in-jokes of giving Kravitz the same hairstyle as Janet Jackson in “Poetic Justice.”
It’s edgier than Hughes’ pictures ever were, of course—the passage of two decades have seen significant cultural change—but it has much the same affectionate perspective on teen misfits, and even ends with a personal statement reminiscent of the one Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) delivered at the close of “The Breakfast Club”—though this time, of course, it’s delivered on video rather than paper.
Actually, the strongest connection I see is to John Hughes films like “The Breakfast Club” or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” escapade-fueled teen films with a surprising amount on their minds.
It's a bit of John Hughes ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "The Breakfast Club") mixed with vintage screwball comedies.
The story’s lead trio of misfit friends are “deeply obsessed with ’90s hip-hop,” yet “Dope” owes more to such white-cast teen movies as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Breakfast Club” than to such later, grimmer, youth-skewing “urban” films as “Boyz n the Hood” and “Menace II Society.”
"Dope" isn’t exactly "The Breakfast Club," "Risky Business" or "Do the Right Thing," and yet in many ways it is.
Similar to The Breakfast Club, Dope will be the go-to film for this generation of millennials.
“Dope” moves like a runaway train from character to character and set piece to set piece, recalling the energy of “Go” or even “Pulp Fiction” in its structure.
Famuyiwa appears to be striving to emulate the laid-back, spontaneous vibe of other Los Angeles sagas such as Pulp Fiction or Friday.
From here on in it frames these interesting characters within a crude crime caper narrative, which might hope to emulate films like Pulp Fiction , After Hours and Go but that judders along, frequently failing to convince.
Reminiscent of Go, Boyz n the Hood, or even Pulp Fiction with its manipulation of chronology, Dope is ultimately most engaging when it’s simply the three title characters bantering about their pressing criminal situation as they get in far over their head.
Imagine Ferris Bueller and his friends dropped into a "Boyz n the Hood"-"Pulp Fiction" mashup and you're halfway to "Dope," a funny take on the teen coming-of-age comedy that uses every cinematic trick in the book to tell an old story -- nerd loses virginity, gets into Ivy League -- in a fresh new way.
The film includes numerous references to early 1990s gangsta movies like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society , but in spirit it’s closer to Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , 1980s comedies about white teenage boys who go through a crazy adventure in a compressed time frame.
It pays homage to such early '90s hits as "Menace II Society," "Boyz N the Hood" and "Juice," but also strives to upend the stereotypes and tropes of those films.
The story’s lead trio of misfit friends are “deeply obsessed with ’90s hip-hop,” yet “Dope” owes more to such white-cast teen movies as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Breakfast Club” than to such later, grimmer, youth-skewing “urban” films as “Boyz n the Hood” and “Menace II Society.”
Early ’90s African-American coming-of-age dramas like Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society turned inner city LA into a frightening jungle of predators and teenage victims, while a film like Friday conversely offered a ’90s LA coming-of-age story that managed to transform “the hood” into a ripe comedic landscape.
What sets the plot in motion recalls another eighties Hall movie, “Out of Bounds,” in which the actor played Daryl Cage, an Iowa farm boy who mistakenly wound up in L.A. with a duffel bag full of drugs and found himself pursued by its real owner.
This opens the door for him to an odyssey that might have been taken from Martin Scorsese's After Hours.
From here on in it frames these interesting characters within a crude crime caper narrative, which might hope to emulate films like Pulp Fiction , After Hours and Go but that judders along, frequently failing to convince.
The movie becomes something of a deadline suspense-comedy, in the manner of “After Hours,” “Superbad” and (less auspiciously) “Date Night.”
“Dope” merges this drug plot with an “ After Hours ”-style escalating series of obstacles for Malcolm.
Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is the leader, the son of single mom whose only contact with his Nigerian father was a gift: a copy of dad's favorite movie, "Super Fly." (Thanks, Pop!) Malcolm has an open manner and a flattop that would make the Fresh Prince jealous -- and he thinks "Summertime " is a classic.
On one hand, Malcolm’s “Super Fly”-inspired plan to force A.J. into pulling some strings at Harvard is no different than, say, a rich White kid whose father and grandfather went to Yale using their influence to get in despite not having the grades for it.
In a scene reminiscent of last year’s similarly themed “ Dear White People ,” a white hipster receives an amusingly on-point tutorial on the don’ts and don’ts of using the n-word .
The movie opens with a burst of smart comic energy, suggesting it might be a worthy counterpart to 2014’s Dear White People , which also used humor to explore ideas of self-image and black identity.
Yet “Dope, ” a big talker at Sundance that often feels like it should be sharper and funnier, isn’t consistently about race—at least not like “Dear White People,” which was about nothing but that subject and was a bit better than “Dope.”
A popular and critical hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, “Dope” would make a fitting double feature with last year’s “Dear White People,” another witty and well-made movie about aspirational, countercultural young African-Americans.
It’s not as sharp as the superficially similar “Dear White People,” but that’s because it trades some edge for populist thrills — but only some edge.
There’s a raft of reasons behind this, but it’s no coincidence that Selma and Dear White People and 12 Years a Slave and Fruitvale Station have all been made while a black man is in the White House.
The kids go on the run with the dope and move across layers of high and low Los Angeles, starting with a hilarious, bizarre visit to a house with two rich, drugged-up kids who act like extras from "Boogie Nights" and get on the news after an incident at "Seven Bucks Coffee" that inspires a new meme: "How'm I spose to eat my pound cake?"
One especially jokey stretch, featuring Chanel Iman as a drug overload's oft-naked daughter and Malcolm's would-be cherry popper, begins as a distracting allusion to the firecracker scene from Boogie Nights before culminating in a trite digression about memes that, as if in kinship to the opening of the ever-churlish Tina Fey's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, delights in transforming poverty and blackness into a punchline.
He's also a fan of vintage hip-hop who dresses and acts as if caught in a 1990s time warp, carrying around a Walkman and sporting a flat-top haircut like the stars of House Party.
Even his haircut is a flashback to that amazing vertical flat top Christopher Reid wore in the 1990 Kid ’n’ Play movie “House Party.”
“ Dope ,” an exuberant coming-of-age comedy that beguiled audiences at Sundance earlier this year, engages the issues of race, identity and authenticity currently aswirl in the culture much in the way that Ryan Coogler’s 2013 Sundance hit “ Fruitvale Station ” eerily echoed the Trayvon Martin story that was dominating headlines when it came out.
Dope lands in a middle-ground of sorts, wherein the colorful LA setting (vibrantly shot by Fruitvale Station cinematographer, Rachel Morrison) is always dynamic and fluid, alternating between funny, sad and scary depictions with a rhythm that is mostly (but not always) controlled and steady.
Like Fruitvale Station, the film was produced by Forest Whitaker (who also cameos as the narrator) and shot by Rachel Morrison, with the latter's dynamic camera work adding energy, color and verve.
The tactic of mixing up disparate elements is central to Dope: a comedy-thriller in the showy tradition of Quentin Tarantino, where any given dialogue exchange might name-drop, say, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson or Hilary Swank's performance in Boys Don't Cry.
Nobody's had this much fun throwing it all together and making something new since Quentin Tarantino left that video store and made "Reservoir Dogs."
Once the plot is established—the three friends find themselves burdened with Dom’s stash of drugs and a large gun—the action turns into a tweaked version of many other films, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to Superbad , in which high school seniors blast through a lifetime’s worth of adventure in a matter of days.
You don't have to look too closely to see bits of "Boyz n the Hood," "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," even "Risky Business" thrown together — but with such visual inventiveness and Famuyiwa's willingness to try anything that it comes together as something original.
“Dope” is a disarmingly fun-loving update on, of all things, the 1990s rash of grim hood movies, like “Boyz N Tha Hood,” “Juice” and “South Central,” but there’s only part where it actually goes too far.
Writer/director Rick Famuyiwa's ("The Wood") high energy comedy does a neat flip, taking an upstanding student of a single mom (Kimberly Elise, "For Colored Girls") from a tough Black neighborhood who wants to get into Harvard but doesn't want to write about his 'cliched' life, then puts him through the paces of bad boy cliches while maintaining his integrity.