Movie Reviews

Dope starts off with a narrator (Forrest Whitaker) who introduces us to Macolm (Shameik Moore), a geeky black kid who’s obsessed with 90ies hip hop culture and who’s into ‘white shite like getting good grades and going to college’ and playing in a punk band with his friends friends, Jib (Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons). Not only does this result in having to deal with bullies at school, but Malcolm also has to survive in a crime-riddled neighborhood in Inglewood known as ‘The Bottoms’ while dealing with college applications and academic interviews. All this is explained in the first couple of minutes, which instantly made me like writer-director Rick Famuyiwa’s newest movie.

Famuyiwa could have easily made a solid movie with just these elements. But when Malcolm unwillingly becomes involved in a drug deal following a party at a night club, things spiral out of control and he soon finds himself launched in a series of misadventures. Along the way he meets local drug dealer Dom (A$ap Rocky) who aks him to woo Nakia (Zoe Kravitz) in his name, a girl that Malcolm likes himself. Then there’s A.J., Dom’s mentor, who also turns out to be Malcolm’s college contact, and a white hacker who’s ticked off because he isn’t allowed to say the n-word while everyone else around him uses it. It’s a solid cast and while a lot of the characters wander in and out of the movie, Jib and Diggy stand by Malcolm the entire time as he goes from geeky to dope in just over a 100 minutes.

Like a mix between a John Hughes movie and ghetto dramas like Boyz N The Hood, Dope is a movie that is as fresh and funny as it is clever and more than worthy of your time.