Review: King of Paper Chasin' DVD

STUDIO: Entertainment One | DIRECTOR: La Monte Edwards | CAST: D.L., Jason Rivera, Piarry Oriol, Dennis L.A. White, Omar Knight
RELEASE DATE: 1/18/11 | PRICE: DVD $19.98
BONUSES: commentary, making-of featurette
SPECS: NR | 124 min. | Urban drama | widescreen | stereo | English subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

“Rapper” Dwayne Clark (a cursory search of his name pulls up only references to this film, and no rap to speak of) conceived and stars in King of Paper Chasin’, a well-written but amateurish street cred film.

Clark is Carter, a closed-mouthed banger with the physique of a big teddy bear and the menace of a guy who’s about to flip out over an undercooked burger. In the course of the story, he identifies and eliminates all the people who have wronged him with a dangerous, cool and calculated maturity that really does lend a whiff of the gang capo Clark is going for.

However, the restrictions of small budget and poor direction become painfully clear throughout as home-movie acting and staging abound and every one of the dozens of “violent” gunshots is replaced by a sound effect and a quick cut to another scene lest the prop department have to procure blanks and squibs. Material and stylistic limitations become most apparent as Carter lives and raps not in a gritty ghetto and a street-level hangout, nor in a mansion and an A-list venue, but in an ordinary apartment and an average nightclub that befit neither a thug nor a power player and unsatisfactorily split the difference, turning him into just the banger next door.

King of Paper Chasin’‘s The tale of extortion and revenge is well-paced and smoothly taut, anchored by charismatic performances from Clark and his right-hand-man, played by Jason Rivera, as long as you can forgive casual mistreatment of women, homophobic themes and the rest of the cast’s shortcomings. As “underground” gangsta films go, it’s definitely got an allure, but a polished and professionally done film, this is not.

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