Reviews

Waist Deep

A sugar buzz

By TOM MEEK | June 28, 2006

2.0 Stars

Larenz Tate in Waist Deep

In this hip-hop urban Bonnie and Clyde wanna-be, charismatic rapper/actor Tyrese (Baby Boy, 2 Fast 2 Furious) plays O2, a recent parolee whose efforts to go straight are derailed when a Crenshaw drug lord inadvertently kidnaps his son during a carjacking. The plot, which has O2 robbing banks and playing one gang against another (a well-worn convention lifted from Yojimbo or any Sergio Leone Western), unfurls in a series of rap-propelled vignettes with Tyrese bristling and narrow-eyed. In fact, everything director Vondie Curtis-Hall drops around his star feels like a photo-shoot prop — even the abducted boy, who when not on screen is forgotten. Curtis-Hall, the former ER actor who showed promise with Gridlock’d but bombed with Glitter, keeps the energy level high, even if it is a sugar buzz, and the supporting cast — which includes the Game, convincing as the heavy — breathes life into two-dimensional roles.

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Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Hip-Hop and Rap, Music, More

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ARTICLES BY TOM MEEK

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There's not much joy but there's plenty of noise of the rafter-rocking gospel singing variety in Tony Graff's musical dramedy.

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Jolie has loosely reworked the story of Romeo and Juliet in an infamous setting familiar from CNN but here seen from the inside.

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For 50 years, Alvin and the Chipmunks have been driving parents nuts with their helium-infused banter and shrill bastardizations of pop music.

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