FILM REVIEW OF ''SUPERFLY'' (2018)

Remakes!  Remakes!  Remakes!  When will they never stop?  Gordon Parks, Jr.’s “Super Fly” (1972) is Hollywood’s latest casualty.  Generally, remakes lack the magic of their predecessors.  Exceptions exist to the rule.  Canadian-born Director X’s updated “Superfly” (**** OUT OF ****) remake adheres to the core of the landmark original. For the record, Director X’s real name is Julien Christian Lutz.  Apart from 2015’s “Across the Line,” Lutz has helmed music videos primarily for the last twenty years, with vocalists such as Usher, R. Kelly, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj.  Lutz imparts both polish and pacing to this profane, bullet-riddled, R-rated, 116-minute crime thriller.  Like the original character, an affluent coke dealer decides to quit the business for safety’s sake.  Indeed, forty-six years later, some things have changed.  “Superfly” takes place in contemporary Atlanta, Georgia, with jaunts around the Southeast, Texas, and Mexico. Comparatively, “Super Fly” (1972) confined itself strictly to New York City.  Not only does “Watchmen” scenarist Alex Tse preserve a lot of the original “Super Fly,” but he also provides greater narrative depth and more characters. “Sons 2 the Grave” actor Trevor Jackson is suitably cast with his handsome GQ looks as the new Youngblood Priest.  Like his forerunner, Priest maintains a low profile so neither local nor national law enforcement knows about him!  He has never been arrested, and his juvenile record is sealed. He strives to blend in rather than stick out. The same was true of Ron O’Neal, who portrayed an older Youngblood Priest in the surprise 1972 smash hit.  Fashion has changed considerably since the original.  Priest cruises around in an upscale Lexus 500 rather than a gaudy pimped-out El Dorado Cadillac.  Our hero’s chief competition is a vainglorious cocaine peddling gang of African-American villains decked out in immaculate white outfits.  These guys look like they belong in the D.C. Comics super-villain universe. The worst thing I can say about “SuperFly” is it made me think of a supercharged “Miami Vice” episode. 

Youngblood Priest has maintained a critical balancing act of living at the top without having to fear either the police or rival coke dealers.  Everything changes radically in one split-second at a strip club when Priest clashes with an impulsive member of the Snow Patrol, Juju (Kaalan Walker of “Kings”), and the latter tries to murder him.  Instead, the reckless Juju wounds an innocent female bystander.  Priest thrusts a wad of bills into the wounded girl’s hand and advises her friends to rush her immediately to the nearest trauma center.  Meantime, Juju’s boss, Q (Big Bank Black of “Birds of a Feather”), far from happy with his trigger-happy henchman, has gone and shelled out $50 grand to silence the wounded girl and her friends.  Indeed, the clash, the shooting, and Juju’s rabid vengeance, register powerfully on our protagonist.  This incident prompts Priest to decide to retire.  In the original “Super Fly,” Priest simply felt the time was ripe to bow out, but the filmmakers never gave him as substantial a motivation as Director X and Alex Tse do with “Superfly.”  Priest commences to plan for his future, even if his long-time partner, Eddie (Jason Mitchell of “Contraband”), refuses to let a good thing go.  Like Eddie in the original “Super Fly,” this Eddie argues that ‘the Man’ won’t let them do anything else.  This seems ironic since “Superfly” was produced after the eight-year presidency of Barrack Obama.  Immediately, Priest looks up his old friend and mentor, Scatter (Michael Kenneth Williams of “Brooklyn's Finest”), who has been supplying him with cocaine.  Priest figures that if he can get more, he can sell more, and then have enough to retire.  Surprisingly, Scatter refuses to accommodate Priest.  Scatter here is a combination of Priest’s mentor from the original as well as his martial arts instructor.

In the original “Super Fly,” Scatter came through for Priest, but it cost Scatter his life. Corrupt NYPD officials ordered Scatter liquidated as a victim of a heroin overdose, and they chose to let Priest and Eddie assume his responsibilities.  In “Superfly,” Priest shrewdly shadows Scatter to find out where his mentor obtains his supply of cocaine.  Meantime, Scatter doesn’t suspect that Priest and Eddie are tailing him.  Neither does Scatter’s connection, Mexican cartel kingpin Adalberto Gonzalez (Esai Morales of “Paid in Full”), notice Priest.  Audaciously, Priest and Eddie follow Gonzalez across the border into Mexico, and Priest meets with the notorious trafficker.  At one point, after his goons do notice Priest, the cartel crime boss has them bring Priest aboard his private jet, and Gonzalez threatens to throw him out of it during the flight.  The level-headed Priest persuades Gonzalez to provide him with enough product for his escape strategy.  This represents the second time Priest has put himself in jeopardy, but he emerges none the worse for wear.  Not until later does Priest brandish a gun to defend himself and his women.  This younger Youngblood Priest displays considerable discretion to avoid wanton bloodshed compared with the volatile Juju.  Things deteriorate dramatically when another black gangsta launches an attack on a barber shop that Q operates as a front.  Virtually everybody but Juju dies during this devastating drive-by shooting.  Eventually, Q discovers that one of Priest’s associates orchestrated the shootout.  Furthermore, a furious Scatter learns Priest has gone behind his back to contact Gonzalez. Worst, a clueless strip club owner, Fat Freddy (Jacob Ming-Trent of “A Midsummer Night's Dream”), is exposed as the man who dispatched the gunmen to kill Juju.  

“Superfly” bristles with more of everything than its unforgettable predecessor.  The Snow Patrol with their Scarface mansion make intimidating adversaries.  Not only has Director X and scenarist Alex Tse carefully retained as much plot as possible from the original, but they have also added more.  One of the strongest additions is the corrupt Atlanta policewoman, Detective Mason (Jennifer Morrison of “Star Trek: Into Darkness”), who exposes Priest.  Ultimately, Director X tips his hat to Curtis Mayfield by including his classic tune in this stellar remake of “Super Fly.” 

FILM REVIEW OF ''SNITCH" (2013)

Arnold Schwarzenegger tangled with the Mexican Drug Cartel in the shoot’em up actioneer “The Last Stand” back in January.  This month the Rock wrestles with the same dastards in “Snitch.”  “Felon” director Ric Roman Waugh pits the six-foot-four inch former World Wrestling Entertainment champ against hoodlums armed with accents and submachine guns in “Snitch.”  This suspenseful but formulaic narcotics caper about a father who plunges himself smack in the middle of a drug war on account of his son telegraphs most of its punches before they land.  Our outnumbered protagonist is a fearless father determined to save his son from death in prison at the hands of the inmates.  Unfortunately, this loquacious crime thriller suffers from a case of pervasive ‘shaky cam’ cinematography.  Happily, “Snitch” shifts gears during its final quarter hour, and Waugh salvages this straightforward melodrama with some smashing automotive derring-do.  Before he started calling the shots as a director, Waugh coordinated and performed stunts in the “Lethal Weapon” sequels.  Mind you, the Rock has made better movies than “Snitch,” but this white-knuckle epic isn’t an outlandish exercise in gratuitous violence.  Waugh and “Revolutionary Road” scenarist Justin Haythe based their humorless undercover crime yarn on an episode of the PBS’ television series “Frontline” that first aired in 1999.  In real life, a desperate dad endangered his own life for the sake of his imprisoned 18 year old son.  The real-life father helped law enforcement nab narcotics dealers, but the local prosecutor refused to honor their side of the deal.  Of course, nothing as treacherous as this transpires in “Snitch” because the filmmakers bathe the Federal Government in a complimentary but gritty light.  

In “Snitch,” Dwayne Johnson emerges as a thoroughly charismatic hero.  In other words, he doesn’t mutate into a fantastic, larger-than-life, figure like The Scorpion King.  As John Matthews, the Rock owns a successful transportation company with a fleet of eighteen wheelers.  He resides with current wife, Analisa (Nadine Velazquez of “Flight”) and their young daughter Isabelle (Kyara Campos) in a spacious house. Meantime, Matthews’ former-wife Sylvie (Melina Kanakaredes of “CSI: NY”) and their 18-year old son, Jason (Rafi Gavron of “Mind Games”), have reverted to her maiden name of Collins.  As “Snitch” unfolds, Jason accepts a special delivery package from a friend who wants to him to stash his drugs for him.  Jason opens the shipping carton, finds a sack of Ecstasy pills, and then spots a DEA signal transmitter.  Moments later, Agent Cooper (a bewhiskered Barry Pepper of “Saving Private Ryan”) and his team storm Jason’s house.  They pursue the terrified lad on foot and in cars through the streets until they corner him.  As Sylvie and John learn in courthouse, Jason’s so-called friend struck a deal with Federal authorities to reduce his own prison sentence by implicating somebody else.  Although Jason admits he has smoked pot in the past, he doesn’t abuse drugs and hasn’t taken anything like the Ecstasy pills in his friend’s package.  Nevertheless, the amount of MDMA that the DEA caught him with lands him in prison for a ten-year stretch.  Naturally, John is as stunned as Sylvie is distraught, while U.S. Attorney Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon of “The Banger Sisters”) refuses to cut John any deals

John Matthews decides to take matters into his own hands.  He persuades an employee on his payroll with a criminal record, David James (Jon Bernthal of “The Walking Dead”), to introduce him to a notorious drug dealer.  This kind of unethical behavior on the part of our hero reflects just how desperate he is to intervene for his son.  Earlier, John tried to infiltrate the local street gangs and gotten beaten up for his trouble.  Eventually, David James comes around and takes John to talk with a two-time loser, Malik (Michael K. Williams of “Gone Baby Gone”), who proves to be a pretty shrewd gangsta.  James and Malik, it seems, knew each other before James decided to go straight for the sake of his wife and son.  John convinces Malik that he needs the money to bolster his declining business.  Afterward, John sneaks back to give Keeghan his news, and Agent Cooper provides him with back-up.  Basically, John plans to let Malik use his tractor-trailers to traffick in narcotics.  During the illegal deal, John and James barely escape, but their initial misfortune turns out to be fortunate.  Whereas John had negotiated a deal to hand Malik to her on a platter, he has an even bigger offer for her.  The local leader of the Mexican Cartel (Benjamin Bratt of “Catwoman”) contacts John in person because he believes there is a place for him in their criminal family. 

The filmmakers turn up the heat on our hero.  When John sees Jason in prison, our hero is shocked by his son’s battered appearance.  Apparently, Jason isn’t holding up too well behind bars, and this compels John to fight even harder.  The problem is John has gotten himself in too deep. The suspense mounts when cartel gunmen pay a surprise visit to John’s house.  Moreover, they learn about Jason through a uniformed contact in the prison, and the pressure rises for our hero to perform.    The cartel wants him to drive a fortune in cash, approximately $83-million in greenbacks, in the trailer of an eighteen wheeler to the border.  John suspects they mean to kill him.  Agent Cooper warns him to be vigilant.  

“Snitch” amounts to an okay actioneer.  The sensational driving stunts pump up the film.  Meantime, the supporting cast spends most of the time on the fringes.  Sarandon’s prosecutor rarely leaves her office, while Barry Pepper stays out of the Rock’s way.  Benjamin Bratt has little time to develop his characterization of a lethal cartel drug leader beyond the stereotypes that we have grown accustomed to in these movies.  Similarly, Melina Kanakaredes is confined to the sidelines.  Essentially, “Snitch” implicates the mandatory-sentencing laws that compelled a father to fend for his son.  Ironically, the same laws Waugh’s movie rants against serve to bring down the villains.