Aside from a brilliant opening flashback, first-time director Cess Silvera’s film adds nothing to the gangster genre. It relates the rise and fall of Biggs (Bob’s son Ky-Mani Marley), a sadist with dreadlocks and the perverse gallantry of Tony Montana. Teamed with friends Wayne (Spragga Benz) and Mad Max (Paul Campbell), he blackmails a Jamaican official to get a trip to Miami in an attempt to conquer the fledgling Florida underworld. Silvera wants to convey the embitterment of the Jamaican experience (as highlighted by a Wyclef Jean soundtrack), but he ends up recycling conventions. The frenetic cutting and sudden lapses into black-and-white are pure surface, and the characters are just set pieces in the incessant gang wars. Shottas can’t generate the thudding veracity of a Scarface because it privileges style over dramatic intensity. It plays more like an overblown music video than a film.
On the Web
Shottas's Web site:http://www.myspace.com/shottasthemovie
