Review: DOPE - The Biggest Hit at Sundance '15 So Far
Writer-director Rick Famuyiwa begins his latest film, Dope, by throwing the three different definitions of the word up on screen:
- an illicit, habit-forming, or narcotic drug
- a stupid person
- A slang word that describes something that is extremely cool
Typically, if someone begins a speech with “Webster’s dictionary defines yada yada as blah blah blah,” you’d be completely justified if you spent the rest of their speech day-dreaming. However, you'll be doing yourself a great disservice if you tune out while watching this film, or miss it when it’s properly released. Famuyiwa does indeed incorporate all three meanings of the title into this fast-paced gem that takes the typical coming-of-age high-school comedy and masterfully weaves in the kind of visual flair and storytelling devices normally only found in heist movies.
Dope follows Malcolm, Jib, and Diggy, three high school outcasts from Inglewood, California who are obsessed with ‘90s hip hop culture and slang (third definition, ✓) , play in a punk band, and are into other "white things" like "skateboards and Donald Glover." The three sexually frustrated high-school seniors get in way over their heads when they are invited to the birthday party of the neighborhood drug dealer. When rival gangs and police show up, Malcolm unwittingly escapes with a shipment of a new kind of party drug (first definition, ✓) stashed in his backpack. Soon after Malcolm realizes what he is in possession of, he and his close-knit friends find themselves evading the police, FBI, and dangerous thugs while also juggling college interviews, taking the SATs, and finding a date for prom.
The young leads — Shameik Moore as Malcolm, Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel) as Jib, and Kiersey Clemons (Eye Candy) as Diggy — have incredible chemistry, and that magic shines brighter as their characters navigate through their increasingly bizarre situation and are forced to get rid of the drugs, one way or another. The comedy is elevated even higher when they enlist the help of their friend Will (Workaholics star Blake Anderson), who is brilliant when it comes to computer hacking, but overall a very stupid person — aaaaand ✓, though this one is checked off a lot throughout the film. The movie also features Zoë Kravitz (X-Men: First Class), and is narrated by Forest Whitaker, who also served as a producer on the film.
Dope feels familiar yet fresh, slightly predictable at times but never pastiche. If I could submit a definition of this film to Webster’s Dictionary, it’d be:
- What Risky Business would be like if John Singleton and Guy Ritchie teamed up to remake it.
It’s the biggest purchase at this year’s Sundance Film Festival so far, with Open Road Films and Sony Pictures paying $7 million to distribute the film, so you’d be a dope not to watch this movie when it’s released.