You know you’re not doing yourselves any favors with a title that rhymes, right? I just wanted to point that out. You can’t package Schindler’s List as “The Jews Get the Blues” and expect it to have quite the same impact. That being said, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete is a film that doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to pointing out how much it sucks to be poor, young and alone in Brooklyn. And it does suck, mightily.
Mister (Skylan Brooks) is the classic product of a broken system. The movie opens with him being told he has to repeat eighth grade. The apartment where he and his heroin addict/prostitute mother live is a hole. His frame is emaciated and slight. You’d swear he’s a painted skeleton. Mister is edgy and confrontational – at times he’s his own worst enemy. I’m so used to the noble urchin or the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliché that it’s refreshing to see an honest portrait of a street rat. He’s pissed. He’ll overturn a rack in a convenience store if the owner is an asshole. He’ll say, “f*** you” to anybody. He’d say it to you or me at the drop of a hat. He’s not an easy kid to love – which is precisely why I feel so much more for him than say, Oliver! The system has beaten him and left him with a wife-beater and a scowl. These are the kids who truly need help. And his experience tells him it’s better to take than ask for it.
Mister’s mom Gloria (Jennifer Hudson) is ratted out as a drug holder by the local trash. At the time, Mister is babysitting for Pete (Ethan Dizon), a younger Korean-American kid with a puppy-like disposition. Pete’s mother is in the same boat as Gloria and with their parents gone, Mister and Pete are on their own. Ah, underage below-poverty line minorities – the demographic you love to ignore. It doesn’t take Mister long to realize he’s stuck. And then three more bad things happen in succession – first, Mister is banned from the 
local mart (which shouldn’t make a difference in Brooklyn, but it does here), then Mister discovers Pete’s only remaining babysitting option is pedophile, and finally, Trash (Julito McCullum) ID’s Mister as the kid belonging to Gloria, thus making Mister a target of the menacing beat officer (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).
So, did you get all that? Mister and Pete have no money. Have no source for food. Have been banned from the one place they know to get food. Have no adult support system. Are targets by the local law. They can trust pretty much nobody and are bullied by the resident asshole. And they just got robbed. BUT living in a rathole with no food and a great fear of the outdoors beats Riverview foster care. Wow. What kind of statement is that, huh?
The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete pretty much says it all, huh? It’s just a matter of time. You can’t live in Brooklyn apartment rent free. You can’t live without food. You can’t be a child without adult support of some kind. This can’t end well, can it? This is a tale we don’t as a nation want to picture. Kids living in poverty by themselves? It shouldn’t happen, ever. But it does. You want to avoid finger pointing and social statements? Just ignore this film.
♪I see the crystal meth stuff fall
And the beauty of it all is the lack of dough for food
Satiation in my mind is the only place you’ll find
My stomach being full
Just the two of us
We can’t make it if we try
Just the two of us
Just the two of us
Life itself is one big *siiiiiiiiiigh*
Just the two of us
Pete and I♫
Rated R, 108 Minutes
D: George Tillman Jr.
W: Michael Starrbury
Genre: The system is broken
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Sociology PhD candidates
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: ‘Merica #1, dudes!
♪Parody inspired by “Just the Two of Us”
