Watch G For Free

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

what a weird line! But anyway, this film looked like was Saturday afternoon BET melodrama with a good budget. The acting was so bad that you would need to be a die-hard fan of at least one of the cast members in order to get through it. In my case, Blair Underwood did it for me. Even though his character is the most vile, evil, manipulative, and ultimately unlikeable person in the entire film, he still manages to give an awesome performance and show what acting is all about. I wish I could say the same for Richard T. Jones who looked so stiff and uncomfortable in the role of Summer G, a record label executive who has it all, except for his one true love. And the one that got away happens to now be married to Underwood's character, Chip Hightower. Chenoa Maxwell (whom I like to refer to as Halle Berry on steroids) walks through her role as Sky Hightower with such ease but sometimes overdoes the more dramatic scenes. Andrew Royo, who plays her cousin Tre steals almost every scene he's in, except for the ones with Underwood. The film in the child of Ralph Lauren's son, Andrew, who also doubles as a cast member named Adam Gordon, Summer G's publicist. I am told the film was inspired by the Hollywood classic, The Great Gatsby. Hopefully, the classic was better than this fluff!

Having the best film title around is about all G has going for it. Richard T. Jones, a hip hop record producer, and Blair Underwood fight over the laughably emotive (and, frankly, not pretty) Chenoa Maxwell. Considering the genre (pseudo-gangsta love drama), I can forgive a lot. My biggest complaint is not that the editing is slipshod, nor that Maxwell is truly awful, nor that Underwood (quite possibly the most attractive man on earth) looks like R Kelly here (and that's not good). It's supposed to be a movie about hip hop - with practically NO HIP HOP! Oh - one of the most memorable unmemorable quotes in cinema this year comes from G: "Happiness is God's orgasm."

...but no cigar. I go into all films with the highest of hopes...and the lowest of expectations. (For the record, I see about 200 films per year. At my own expense. I'm a screenwriter and this is part of my ongoing education.) Most times, I'm disappointed. (However, I've had three great film experiences in the past two weeks and I'm expecting to see two of the year's best over the next three days.)'G' was a disappointment. I'm not going to go into particulars of plot and spoil it for anyone, but what I will say is that if there's any 'connection' between this film and the world of hip-hop, it's a reliance on style. That is, 'bombastic' gets the job done. Now, before anyone accuses me of dissin' hip-hop, I'm not. I wouldn't claim to know enough about the music to have a credible opinion. But certainly the music videos, the marketing, the press, the 'lifestyle' implies that -it would be easy to believe- having the bling does the thing. (Yes, I know the music transcends the attitude.) Here, basic storytelling precepts were thrown out the window and a reliance was placed on the arena of hip-hop with the parties and the cars and the jewellery. There was so little going on in this film...and when something did go on, it was either convoluted, lacking proper motivation, or was completely out of perspective. For the record, the acting was fine. The production values were great. But the script... Yes, there were a couple of funny moments. But there was nothing to either grab onto, or to grab you. The story was not engaging at all. The characters -though all very, very beautiful and handsome- didn't pique your curiosity. You knew where everything was going to end up. And the screenwriter/director should be reminded of the fact that what people say doesn't define their personalities. What they *do* tells us who and what they're like. There was way too much posturing in this film; fine for hip-hop videos, where most everything these days seems to be a parody of itself, but not for a motion picture. The rules are completely different. What this film needed was more exploration of who the characters were, where they'd been and what really was at stake with the decisions that ended up being made, because in the end, it was 'a tempest in a teapot'. A 24 carat gold one, of course. I'm sad that so much effort went into this production and so little passion ended up on the screen. I'm especially sad that this wasn't a better vehicle for Richard T Jones, someone that I think has a lot more potential than Jamie Foxx or Will Smith. Oh, well. Onto the next film, eh?

I think the movie "G" puts an interesting and suspenseful spin on a boring and non-captivating novel. I was required to read "Great Gatsby" my senior year in high school, and we my class got a chance to view it at a film festival we were all amazed. Christopher Scott Cherot made me fall in love with a plot line that I had previously not cared for at all. It was a brilliant idea to take a bland setting and prodominately white characters and put a hip-hop spin on it. The climax of the movie can use a little work, but the movie is awesome as is.