The Diva's "Turn It Up" Review

(click here to skip to this movie's rating) Turn It Up (2000) Rated R; approximate running time of 83 minutes Directed by: Robert Adetuyi Written by: Ray 'Cory' Daniels,Chris Hudson,Kelly Hilaire, Robert Adetuyi Starring: Pras,Ja-Rule, Tamala Jones, Vondie Curtis-Hall Genre: Wednesday Night Ghetto WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW. The Digest Diamond (Pras) is a struggling rap artist. He has a producer who is a coke fiend, a manager that will shoot you for looking at him funny, a pregnant girlfriend, and to top it off, his studio time has been cut short unless he can start paying full price. What's a brotha to do? His manager Gage (Ja-Rule) makes his money by running for the local Australian crime lord. He uses that money to finance Diamond. Gage is a hothead and his temper keeps him in trouble. Diamond is the brains of the outfit and is always saving Gage from himself. Diamond must keep his head on straight and cut his album so he can get off the streets and take care of himself and his pregnant girlfriend, Nia (Tamala Jones). His absent father (Vondie Curtis-Hall) shows up out of the blue and this upsets Diamond. But his father provides him with the courage and musical knowledge to make his album come together and it's 10 times better than it was. Gage comes through with enough money for them to cut the record everything is once again happy in the ghetto until all hell breaks loose when it is discovered whom the money really belongs to. The Dish Children, sometimes you walk away from a movie and you just want to start cussin. I'm *really* trying to be fair here because I know everyone gave it their best efforts. But damn it, that movie was a mess. I'm going to ignore the fact the "N" word was spoken about every 20 seconds right along with the "F" word. I'm going to ignore that the plot was bad and the dialog was corny. Hell, I'm even going to ignore all the violence and the fact that Diamond didn't get off his lazy ass and get a JOB to finance his record. What I cannot in good faith ignore is this poor attempt to rip-off "Purple Rain". That burned my butt. What were those people thinking? Obviously they weren't. This was the most uninteresting movie I've seen in a long time. I was supposed to feel sympathetic to Diamond, but I couldn't even muster that. At the very least, they could have laid some hard tracks throughout the movie. And Gage? Gage was a straight up punk thug. I know there are young brothas out there that act just like him and I don't see what's so cute about it. Ain't nothing cute about pulling guns on people for no reason and mistreating women. 88 minutes y'all. 88 minutes of nothing. And of course it's part of the Wednesday Night Ghetto. Yup that's right. It's going to be released on a Wednesday and y'all can best believe the police will be in full riot gear. Okay I know they had a small budget. I'm taking that into account. I also know that this movie will earn a profit. In fact it may just place in the top 5 because I know all of our youngsters are going to race out to see this movie. I don't know why. Just stay home and watch about 12 hours of BET and MTV. Ghetto Superstar my behind. If he was a superstar I missed it. I missed it right along with the ghetto. God I'm angry! Why do we keep making this mess? The Directive I want to support the brotha in his efforts, but I just can't. This movie was something else. Stay home and keep your kids with you. They don't need to see this mess either. This was one long and very bad music video. back to top Copyright Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht, 2000 EMAIL: thediva@3blackchicks.com ICQ: 8690410 http://www.3blackchicks.com/ Use the feedback form below to send your comments to The Diva