At what point does “making it rain” become littering? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the point of “making it rain” is that you have so much money you can literally shower grateful people with it, yes? The keyword in that sentence is “grateful.” So if you’re in the stripper club and thumbing fifties about like ticker tape at an old-fashioned parade and nobody seems to be collecting the fifties, isn’t that just littering? This, of course, begs a series of stripper protocol questions: When is it OK to collect the money? Are there rules? If a playah places a bill in-between two strippers, who collects it? See, here’s the thing – I don’t buy the idea that a stripper won’t collect the money without enforced rules. Personally, I can’t see a stripper saying, “Dude, wait. I’m a professional. Let me do my routine first.” Do women strip to work on their dance skills? Clearly I know nothing about any of this.
You’re not gonna believe this, but despite a stripclub scene with several very-dressed men raining money on several not-so-dressed women, SuperFly is not the world’s most progressive film. I know, go figure.
The not-even-a-flyspeck-anticipated remake of SuperFly isn’t actually about strippers, but cool under-the-radar drug-dealing middle man Youngblood Priest (Trevor Jackson, in one of the great hair acting performances in movie history). As his name suggests, Priest is a man of non-violence. Oh, he’s a badass jiu jitsu master, but he has vowed never to kill. Priest’s greatest assets are demeanor, insight, and fabulous hair. Oh, this guy has hair that would make young Fabio jealous. At an exclusive club, he collects a prized chickmobile from its brash, heavily-armed, fur-wearing owner without raising his voice, much less his finger. Next stop, Snow Patrol HQ … another nightclub where rival dealers dress and equip entirely in white so they can be spotted more easily by police.
Priest knows how to play nice, but a Snow Patrol underling thinks Priest has a girl or two over the legal limit. You don’t know the half of it, pal. Priest (not quite suggestive of his name) lives with two women: Georgia (Lex Scott Davis) and Cynthia (Andrea Londo). This threesome has frequent shower-based reunions. Outside the club, a third woman stomachs a bullet intended for Youngblood Priest, and the latter realizes his time as a non-violent observer is at an end … one last large score and Priest hangs up his collar.
Our lead character is so shrewd that I don’t really buy his rash decision. Here’s a dealer so smooth and smart that he doesn’t have a record and neither do his underlings. I assume this is unheard of in a city like Atlanta, where the majority of this tale takes place. And yet, it is exactly the shrewd cool that
makes SuperFly worth seeing. Oh, who am I kidding, I’d probably have enjoyed it for Trevor Jackson’s hair acting alone. Relative newcomer Director X. (And he’s a director! What were the odds? I mean, when you have the name “Director X.” have you ever been “Key Grip X.?” –imdb sez he used to be “Little X” … was that when he littled?) I digress … Director X. immediately proves more than adequate in the hair directing realm. The key is: let the hair do all the work, because it will.
So I don’t know if the SuperFly remake is exactly a great piece of art – the “one last score” routine is hardly ground-breaking and the film reminded me nothing of the original SuperFly (then again, I last saw that film in the 1970s, so what do I know?), but I like Trevor Jackson a great deal; I daresay he has a decent future ahead of him … as does Director X … so long as he doesn’t become “Producer X.” I don’t think we need that.
The guy with the coif so star spangled
Finds his career newly mangled
Of that, he don’t care
But don’t mess with the hair
Unless you want to be entangled
Rated R, 116 Minutes
Director: Director X. (If that is in fact your real name)
Writer: Alex Tse
Genre: Legends of great hair acting
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Middle Management
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Law enforcement
