Navigating between bad and worse choices.
Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is caught in the middle. Growing up in the Bottoms, the roughest area of the black community of Inglewood, Calif., hasn’t been easy for Malcolm and his best pals, Jib (Tony Revolori, the bellhop in The Grand Budapest Hotel) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons). They’re nerds who are focused on getting good grades and attending Ivy League colleges, and geeks for ’90s hip-hop culture, BMX bikes, Game of Thrones and other things associated with white tastes.
Dope seems to start out as a coming-of-age movie, but quickly transitions into a peppy caper film. Writer/director Rick Famuyiwa throws in a little bit of everything so that Dope moves along at a rapid clip, allowing little time for reflection. Life in the Bottoms is “a daily navigation between bad and worse choices,” explains Malcolm. One day Malcolm, Jib and Diggy bike past the neighborhood drug dealers in order to avoid the gangbangers on another street. Lured in by Dom (A$AP Rocky), Malcolm acts as a go-between to deliver a message to Dom’s would-be girlfriend Nakia (Zoë Kravitz), who turns out to be struggling with some math problems. The three high-schoolers end up at Dom’s birthday party, where a raid sends everyone scrambling, and the next day Malcolm discovers drugs and a gun in his backpack where books ought to be. Thus begins the caper.
With Dom in jail, the kids decide to sell the MDMA themselves online, using Bitcoin for payment. Amusing sequences with the white dreadlocked hacker they met at band camp (Blake Anderson) and a scene-stealing Molly moocher (Chanel Iman) pay off handsomely. Other sequences, such as the Risky Business-like throwback to an interview with a Harvard recruiter, are less satisfying. The third act gets a little preachy, and the film ends with Malcolm orating full-on to the camera. Although there are too many story strands, Rachel Morrison’s cinematography and Lee Haugen’s editing keep the film fluid and buoyant. The ubiquitous Pharrell contributed music to the film and is an executive producer; Forest Whitaker serves as the story’s narrator. Messages about learning to be comfortable in one’s own skin and the hypocrisy of the ruling class are delivered with genial humor and mild pokes. Curiously, the tone of Dope is at a far remove from the gritty world portrayed in films like Boyz n the Hood and Juice, works grounded in the ’90s hip-hop culture that Malcolm so loves.
