Professionally executed but not particularly distinctive, ”Juice” is the first directorial effort of Ernest R. Dickerson, the talented
cinematographer who has shot all of Spike Lee`s films, from ”Joe`s Bed-Sty Barbershop” to ”Jungle Fever.”
To get the inevitable comparison out of the way, Dickerson turns out to be a far less polemical and far more naturalistic filmmaker than Lee. Where Lee creates bluntly provocative political cartoons, Dickerson is more of a straightforward illustrator and observer, more concerned with placing a pre-existing world on the screen than in creating one of his own.
”Juice” is set in a present-day Harlem that feels full and detailed-lived-in in a way that Lee`s more cartoonish, quick-sketch backgrounds do not.
On the other hand, Dickerson`s characters-four teenage pals, whose dreams of easy money end in violent tragedy-lack the edginess and ambiguity that define Lee`s creations, falling closer to the standard dramatic and moral conventions.
The good boy is Q (short for Quincy), a baby-faced would-be disc jockey
(Omar Epps, making his debut) whose fondest dream is to enter and win the talent contest held weekly at a local club. He has a mom who loves him and an older, divorced woman (Cindy Herron) for a distinctly motherly girlfriend.
Q`s best friend and opposite number is Bishop (Tupac Shakur, of the rap group Digital Underground), an excitable, possibly unbalanced young man who finds show business too slow a route to the top and suggests armed robbery as an alternative.
Bishop`s hero, we discover as the boys spend an idle afternoon drinking malt liquor and watching television, is Cody Jarret, the psychotic gangster played by James Cagney in Raoul Walsh`s ”White Heat.” When Cody achieves his famous end-going up with an exploding gas storage tank as he exclaims, ”Top of the world, Ma!”-Bishop stares at the screen with envy and excitement, obviously planning his own spectacular exit. A conflict is born.
Caught in the middle are Raheem (Khalil Kain), who is hazily defined apart from his talents as a peacemaker between his two more opinionated pals, and Steel (Jermaine Hopkins), an overweight, infantile kid whose rapid speech and stylized, jabbing gestures provide the film`s comic relief.
”Juice” traces a sagging emotional arc from aimlessness to hopelessness, passing through guilt and despair. The first part of the film, loose and anecdotal, follows the four boys as they drift through their uptown neighborhood, dodging threats from a rival Puerto Rican gang and boosting records from a local store.
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The second half turns to an intently dark and claustrophobic film noir style to chart the grim aftermath of a bungled robbery attempt that has resulted in two pointless deaths.
Dickerson seems to be deliberately avoiding the screaming confrontational scenes that define much of Lee`s dramatic style, going instead for unspoken resentments and simmering anger. His direction of actors is far more restrained and even-keeled, achieving a Lee-like intensity only with a memorable guest appearance by Samuel L. Jackson, the hophead brother of
”Jungle Fever.”
It`s a perfectly competent film, but the title quantity is the one thing this dry and earnest movie hasn`t got.
`Hearts of Darkness`
When ”Hearts of Darkness,” Fax Bahr`s documentary on the making of
”Apocalypse Now,” premiered on Showtime last fall, The Tribune`s able TV critic Rick Kogan described it as ”a masterpiece of its kind.”
The film, pieced together from outtakes, home movie footage and the tape- recorded reflections of director Francis Ford Coppola and his wife Eleanor, has now returned for a theatrical run at the Fine Arts Theatre, and it remains a compelling behind-the-scenes history of Coppola`s maddest and grandest project.
One of the mysteries of this medium is how movies as obviously flawed as
”Apocalypse Now” manage to outlive their more conventionally successful and better-made contemporaries; Bahr`s study goes some way toward accounting for the enduring charisma that surrounds failure on such a whopping, visionary scale.
Rating for ”Hearts of Darkness”: (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
”JUICE”
(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson; written by Gerard Brown and Dickerson;
photographed by Larry Banks; edited by Sam Pollard and Brunilda Torres;
production designed by Lester Cohen; music by Hank Shocklee and the Bomb Squad; produced by David Heyman & Neal H. Moritz and Peter Frankfurt. A Paramount Pictures release; opens Jan. 17 at the Burnham Plaza, Chestnut Station and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:30. MPAA rating: R. Violence, strong language, adult situations.
THE CAST
Q………………………………………………………Omar Epps
Raheem………………………………………………..Khalil Kain
Steel…………………………………………….Jermaine Hopkins
Bishop……………………………………………….Tupac Shakur
Yolanda………………………………………………Cindy Herron