How did you get the cut on your face, O2 asks when he picks up his son at the schoolyard.
A fight, the gentle kid replies.
How’d you do?
“I beat his —.”
Dad smiles. Pauses. “What’d I tell you about fighting?” he demands.
There are a lot of “Do as I say, not as I do” moments in “Waist Deep.” Most belong to director Vondie Curtis Hall (“Redemption”) and co-writer Darin Scott, who bury their socially astute intelligence beneath unsatisfying gangsta love.
Tyrese Gibson stars in this shallow parable about a father who must break some laws – OK, plenty of them – to get his son back from a Los Angeles gang boss.
At a busy south L.A. intersection, a woman hustling boosted suits approaches O2’s muscle car. Tucked away in the back, Junior sleeps. Moments after Coco (Meagan Good) walks away, the former convict, now a security guard, gets carjacked.
He’s certain Coco set him up. But he gets over that fast enough to make her his partner in a necessary crime spree.
As a father, O2 is a work in progress. He hides his revolver in his glove compartment, then goes ballistic when Junior finds it. But he’s not afraid to tell the boy “I love you.” He even gives Junior (H. Hunter Hall) a black action figure, a Union cavalry man and his horse.
As a former gang member, O2’s a creature of habit.
Except for an adrenaline-
pumped dash through the streets and a spontaneous shootout, O2 is never as emotionally desperate as Junior’s dire situation demands. This isn’t entirely Gibson’s fault. He’s not an actor yet, but the camera remains interested.
O2’s dodgy cousin Lucky (Larenz Tate) learns who is holding Junior and how much it will cost to get him back: a cool $100,000 in a short 24 hours. Soon Coco and O2 are robbing banks, turning rival gangsters on each other and, yes, falling for each other. This script’s so thin it’s grueling.
Loving fathers and sons remain among the least represented characters in flicks aimed at urban youth audiences. Hoodlums are a dime a dozen. The ones here are even more bargain-basement.
Hip-hop performer The Game plays the sadist du jour. Any doubts about his business style are put to rest with a swift chop of a machete.
Mixed messages about community and a love-hate ambivalence about crime and its payout abound.
“Save our streets! Save our streets!” So goes the mantra chanted by the fed-up citizens in the movie’s background as the street gangs inflict their dramas on South Central.
But by teasing us with potential meaning only to embrace wanton gunplay, “Waist Deep” betrays thinking members in the audience.
Let’s be honest: Beyond the fine acting and engrossing story, there wasn’t much socially redeeming value in last summer’s pimp-reborn ride “Hustle & Flow.” Sometimes that can be enough. All movies don’t have to be deep. But not one of them should waste our time.
“Waist Deep” | * REVIEW
R for strong violence and pervasive language|1 hour, 37 minutes|STREET DRAMA| Directed by Vondie Curtis Hall; written by Hall and Darin Scott; photography by Shane Hurlburt; starring Tyrese Gibson, Meagan Good, Larenz Tate, the Game |Opens today at area theaters.
