Review: "Cut Throat City"

"Cut Throat City" is a grim and grating tale of crime and despair. Set in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it spins the story of Blink, an aspiring comic book artist who turns to the gang life in order to get his family by. Over the course of the next two hours he descends into his personal heart of darkness, encountering increasingly depraved souls -- and risking the state of his own.

Blink is played by Shameik Moore, a young actor I've had my eye on for awhile. He had a terrific breakout in the criminally under-seen "Dope" five years ago, and was the lead voice actor on 2018's hit "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." He's got a sly sensitivity to him, and in his portrayal of Blink we see a kind soul who must harden himself to the harsh conditions surrounding him like a shroud.

Blink winds up doing some pretty terrible things, and yet we never glimpse in him a person who revels in these acts -- unlike some other, contrasting figures we'll meet.

"Cut Throat City" is overtly a morality tale, looking at the largely Black community in the Lower Ninth Ward, which was flooded by the storm and then allowed to fester in a fever of drugs, unemployment, abandonment and despair. To Blink, the levees breaking was just the latest act in a long history of being ignored and put down by the government.

It's a solid crime saga with a real social bite to it.

The film is directed by RZA, best known as a rap artist with the Wu Tang Clan but who has increasingly turned to moviemaking, including two previous features (unseen by me). He already shows considerable skill as a storyteller, and has an intrinsic feel for how to get actors to be their most present in a scene. RZA is also good at knowing when to hold a moment a beat or two longer, and when to move on.

The screenplay by P.G. Cushieri, his first feature, isn't nearly as tight as it could be, especially in the second half as we keep introducing new characters that probably aren't necessary to the story. But the ones we do encounter are sharply drawn, and the dialogue has the authentic crack of people who have made their life on the streets and have little patience for sophistry.

"Cut Throat City" also boasts an amazing supporting cast of name actors: Ethan Hawke, Isaiah Washington, Terrence Howard, Rob Morgan and Wesley Snipes among them. Snipes in particular has terrific presence as Blink's absent father Lawrence, who he must turn to in time of need.

Bald, his chin tucked to his prodigious chest and teeth clenching a pipe, Lawrence ambles around his poor shack in the swamp like an exiled king. Here is a man who knows the costs of his mistakes and would impart those tough lessons to his son.

After a career of ups and downs, it's nice to be reminded that Snipes has serious acting chops when he given a chance to use them.

The story starts with Blink's wedding to Demyra (Kat Graham), then flashes to the time after Katrina. Blink is rudely rejected for an artist job, but they don't qualify for FEMA assistance. With the bills piling up, he and his best friends figure they'll try a heist to get them a boost. Of course, the "one job" becomes a downslide to increasing violence.

This means aligning with Cousin Bass, the local head gangbanger (who actually is Demyra's cousin, but everyone calls him that). Cousin is a pure feral creature, concerned with making money and inflicting pain. Chillingly played by musician T.I., he has (ersatz) vertiglio patches on his face that make it seem like his skull is trying to shrug out of his skin.

Blink's crew are Miracle aka T.C. (Demetrius Shipp Jr.), a low-level drug dealer with a temper; Andre (Denzel Whitaker), the quiet, kindly one who plays trumpet; and Junior (Keean Johnson), the white kid who embraces Black culture and is accepted as part of their little tribe, though with a little trash-talking banter.

Their job, ripping of a casino -- seemingly the only legitimate businesses growing in New Orleans -- goes south and they find themselves on the run, caught between Cousin and the cops. Eiza Gonzalez plays Valencia, the stiff-necked detective on the case. And Ethan Hawke shows up as Symms, the corrupt city councilman who's drowning himself in drink and mourning his dead wife, and trying to do the right thing... possibly for the first time ever.

The story loses steam between the second and third acts, as the number of side characters and plots builds up and threatens to upend the weight of Blink's journey. Morgan plays Courtney aka Cowboy C, another local crime boss with an ace up his sleeve; Isaiah Washington is Sinclair, the slithering and perpetually smoking funeral home director; and Howard turns up lat as the Saint, a mysterious figure who seems to live in an old church and is said to be pulling everybody's strings.

There's a lot good things going on in this movie. There are too many extra pieces to the puzzle and the film could easily stand to be 15-20 minutes shorter. (A comment lament I have these days.)

But there's undeniable energy and verve here. Watching "Cut Throat City" feels like a journey into its own little universe where there are no good choices and the rules of fair play have been washed away.

Review: "Dolemite Is My Name"

I went into “Dolemite Is My Name” without any foreknowledge; I only knew that it starred Eddie Murphy and was set in the 1970s. It was not until the film’s end credits that I learned it’s a biopic of a real person, singer/actor/comedian Rudy Ray Moore.

I’m not familiar with Moore’s 1975 film, “Dolemite,” or the ones that followed. I confess I’ve never delved deep into the Blaxploitation genre, as the ones I’ve seen are pretty silly and/or icky.

Interestingly, that’s one of the key themes of the movie: how white and black audiences value different things in their cinematic tastes. For example, nobody depicted in this movie would ever use the word “cinematic.”

There’s a terrific scene where Rudy (Murphy) and his buddies go to see “The Front Page,” a 1974 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthew as squabbling journalists. They peer around at the mostly white audience, laughing it up and enjoying the heck out of the picture, which they find completely unfunny and limp.

Where are the boobies, kung fu fighting and explosions? Rudy demands. That’s what black audiences want to see. So they set out to make their own movie for their own tribe.

It’s the best film role Eddie Murphy has had in years, playing an over-the-hill, 6th-rate comic who works in a record shop by day and does a lame emcee shtick at a local music club at night. He can’t even get the DJ (Snoop Dogg) of the little in-house radio station at the record store to play some of his old R&B 45s.

With an ample belly, thinning patch of hair that he covers with an afro wig and outlandish velour-and-polyester outfits, Murphy’s Rudy Ray Moore is a formerly cool guy grasping at the scraps of his youth. He moved to Los Angeles from his backwater home in Arkansas to make it big, and decades later he’s still small-time.

“I ain’t got nothin’ nobody wants,” he laments.

One day Rudy gets an idea to create a new act out of the boasting and jokes of the local “bums” -- using the parlance of the day – particularly their affinity for a mythological urban hero named Dolemite. His sex-and-braggadocio exploits are used as a common riff. Rudy pays them for their jokes, then assembles them to create the character of Dolemite for himself.

It’s an instant hit, and soon he’s touring the country doing the Dolemite act, cutting comedy records that inch their way up the Billboard charts, and even takes on a protégé in the form of Lady Reed (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a plus-sized woman who’s spent her life being put down.

Remember how Rudy’s gang was mystified by the white-people comedy? That’s how I felt about the Dolemite act. There don’t appear to be any real jokes, just a series of put-downs and relating of endless sexual exploits. But audiences at black clubs eat it up.

It’s a telling dichotomy: African-Americans, after centuries of degradation, crave loud and boisterous self-affirmation; while privileged whites like me cling to humility as the lost virtue, and find such displays crass.

Despite his success, Rudy decides that to truly be a big star he needs to make a movie. He scrapes together some money and recruits his friends, adds some UCLA film students and a smattering of white actors to play the heavies, and unofficially takes over an abandoned hotel as their studio.

Of course, none of them know what the hell what they’re doing. So D’Urville Martin, an actual name actor played by Wesley Snipes, is recruited to co-star in the picture. Effete and snobby, he initially refuses until he’s offered the director’s chair -- a position he seems to hold only titularly, spending most of his days on the set drinking, having to be prodded to say “Action” or “Cut.”

The rest of the cast includes Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chris Rock, Tituss Burgess, and a few other notables of black Hollywood. But the spotlight is clearly on Murphy here.

It’s an entertaining, thoroughly raunchy movie, directed by Craig Brewer from a screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. (All white guys, it should be noted.)

The movie also serves as an excellent time capsule of the cultural shift in the early- to mid-70s, a time when you could walk into a movie theater and see pornographic movies but record stores wouldn’t carry albums containing too much cursing.

“Dolemite Is My Name” is the story of a man whom popular culture had decided deserved to be a Lilliputian, but harbored gigantic ambitions that would not accept that judgment. Rudy Ray Moore willed himself into the star he felt he should be, despite not having any particular talent.

But he knew what his people wanted, and gave it to them. Whether what they wanted was worthy is above my pay grade.

Reeling Backward: "Major League" (1989)

My affection for baseball movies is a puzzle, even to me. I don't care for the sport at all, but it's rendered a lot of great fictional legends over the years. Perhaps it's because you only see tiny snippets of the game, and just the interesting stuff.

Baseball may be the most boring sport, but perhaps precisely because the mind wanders so much, it's the one that best lends itself to storytelling.

I never got around to seeing "Major League" at the time, and had little interest. It seemed like a big, dumb, crude movie about and for jocks. In a lot of ways it's the apotheosis of "Bull Durham," which came out a year earlier and was more my speed. That film was about people who happened to be connected by minor league ball; it was very much of baseball but not about baseball.

"Major League" was a big hit that spawned two sequels and has become embedded in the lore of baseball in a way that hasn't really happened with football or basketball flicks. Players and broadcasters frequently reference the film, such as catcher David Ross filming a tribute upon the movie's 25th anniversary in which he played most of the major roles himself.

It launched or buoyed a lot of careers. "Wild Thing," aka Ricky Vaughn, probably remains Charlie Sheen's most memorable role as the oddly coifed badboy pitcher who eats a big slice of humble pie when he's made to wear dweeby glasses to improve his control issues. It made Wesley Snipes, playing Willie Mays Hayes, the speedster base-stealer, such a big star to the extent he declined to appear in the sequel.

This was also the period of Peak Corbin Bernson, who specialized in playing well-groomed, blond preppy dicks, most notably on TV's "L.A. Law." Here he's Roger Dorn, the highest-paid and sole marquee player on a team of misfits and has-beens. Tom Berenger, already a big star, bought a few more years in the spotlight as Jake Taylor, a broken-down veteran given one last shot at the majors before his balky knees give out.

Dennis Haysbert and Renee Russo both made their big-screen debuts (other than tiny cameos) at age 35 in "Major League," and have gone on to long and productive film and television careers. He played Pedro Cerrano, the voodoo-worshiping power hitter who has trouble with the curve; she was Lynn Wells, Jake's spunky ex- and, he hopes, future wife.

Bob Uecker plays the Indians' play-by-play announcer, Harry Doyle, who generously tips a bottle of bourbon into his coffee, and tries to spin gold to the mostly-empty seats.

Probably the unlikeliest career boost was to James Gammon, the (now) famously gravelly voiced manager of the team. The rare cameraman-turned-actor, Gammon bounced around for years playing cowboys and tough guys. With that iconic voice, which sounds like a motorized purr, and authoritative mien, Gammon would go on to a very busy career in the 1990s and aughts, doing movies, plays, television ("Nash Bridges") and voice work ("The Iron Giant").

Gammon steals pretty much every scene he's in, and "Major League" remains his signature role.

(A personal aside and missed opportunity: Gammon owned a horse ranch in the Ocala, Fla., area while I was a reporter and later entertainment editor at the Ocala Star-Banner. I tried to hook up with him a number of times for an interview, but he preferred his privacy when not working. He died at age 70 in 2010.)

The plot from writer/director David S. Ward is a pretty typical sports underdog story: the beloved owner of the Cleveland Indians passes away of old age, and his spoiled bitch trophy wife (Margaret Whitton), a former Las Vegas showgirl, decides to decamp the organization to Miami for warmer pastures and a huge, modern stadium built with local tax dollars.

(The Miami Marlins would, of course, go on to do just that four years later.)

Her contract with the MLB says she can move the team if attendance falls below 800,000 people for the season. So the roster is packed with newbies, problem children, creaky old minor-leaguers, wannabes and never-beens. The plan is to tank the season, drive the fans away and say hello to ocean breezes.

Gammon plays Lou Brown, manager of the minor league Toledo Mud Hens, brought in to run the circus into the ground. When he first fields the phone call with the offer, Lou is at his off-season job, running the service desk at a local tire shop; he puts the Indians' general manager on hold to haggle with a customer about some whitewalls.

Even if you haven't seen the movie, I think we all know how this turns out: after a run of comedically atrocious performances, the ragtag team starts to gel, overcomes cultural differences and personal beefs to make an unexpected run at the title. The villainous owner buckles down even harder, trading in their team jet for an aged propeller plane and later a smoke-filled bus, but that only brings them closer together.

In perhaps the film's most famous bit, Lou Brown places a life-size cutout of the owner in the locker room, promising to remove one piece of clothing for every win. They make it to the big game, facing off against their longtime rivals the New York Yankees, as the last piece is removed to reveal her pastie-covered woobies.

Interestingly, for what's remembered as a bawdy comedy, this is the closest we come to any female nudity in the film -- though there's male asses aplenty.

The side plot stuff is pretty lame, mostly revolving around dalliances with women. Ricky is seduced by a strange woman who turns out to be Dorn's wife, seeking revenge for his brazen philandering. Their inter-team squabble plays out literally during the down moments of the championship game. (It's never really explained why self-styled badass Ricky is afraid of the team dandy, the guy who won't sacrifice his body to shag a ground ball.)

Jake's redemption is rather half-hearted. He admittedly slept around like crazy on Lynn, took her for granted, and hasn't spoken to her in three years as the story opens. Yet he expects her to drop everything she's doing to fall back into his burly arms, including giving the heave-ho to her rich jerk lawyer fiance.

In one awkward scene, Jake stumbles into a party hosted by Lynn's beau, and he is politely interrogated over his career prospects. The snooty rich guests don't even know the name of the Cleveland team, or recognize him as the starting catcher. Jake is forced to confess that he has no idea what he'll do after baseball, and that he earns the "league minimum."

(What the filmmakers don't tell you is this amounted to $62,500 in 1989. That's about $123,000 in today's dollars -- hardly mortifying chump change.)

Most of the actors reasonably pass themselves off as pro athletes. Berenger looks like a jock's jock, and Sheen was an actual pitcher in high school who reportedly got his fastball up to the mid-80s m.p.h. during production. (With a little help from steroids, according to Sheen himself.) I was struck how there are no six-packs or bulging muscles; these are normal male bodies, though more in shape than average. It was another age then.

Another enduring tidbit from the film is Jobu, the fictional voodoo god worshiped by Cerrano, including a miniature shrine built in his locker complete with rum and cigars. You can still buy little Jobu dolls, which look like a well-tanned version of Doc Brown from "Back to the Future," and other merch from "The Jobu Lifestyle" website. During their 2016 World Series run, the actual Cleveland Indians built their own modern-day Jobu shrine.

This brings me to the question of the relationship between the city and the ersatz version of their team presented in "Major League." The Cleveland portrayed in the movie is a grimy, polluted blue-collar town where the residents constantly bad-mouth their baseball team in between itinerantly going to watch them play in a run-down, cheap-looking stadium. (Actually Milwaukee County Stadium.)

"They're shitty," relates the Greek chorus, otherwise known as the team of Japanese stadium groundskeepers, using subtitles.

Usually sports movies employ fictional names and settings, as in this one, which recently appeared in this space. I'm surprised the Indians agreed to have their likeness used in a not-exactly-flattering portrait of the team and town.

I'm not sure if "Major League" deserves to be immortalized quite like it has. The jokes are pretty straightforward, and the locker room misogyny of the film hasn't aged well. (If it ever looked passable in the first place.) But it's got some distinctive characters, the baseball action is convincing and there's plenty of fun to be had. Call it a stretch double.