A mockumentary chronicling the rise and fall of NWH, a not particularly talented--or particularly bright but always controversial--hip-hop group.
Writer/Director: Rusty Cundieff
Stars: Larry B. Scott, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Rusty Cundieff, Kasi Lemmons.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106880/
Watched on AmazonPrime.
11 "songs" in the Soundtracks, 9 Written by Rusty Cundieff and various others.
Rated 7.2 by 3,570 IMDb voters. This was distributed in theatres in '94, entered at the Sundance Film Festival on the date above.
This spoofs NWA (and rap in general), whose members have included Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, M.C. Ren, DJ Yella, and Arabian Prince (per IMDb Trivia). Here, NWH (the H is for Hats) has members Tone Def, Tasty Taste and Ice Cold.
None of the rappers dies (although threats abound), but they've had 6 or 7 managers killed by gunshot wound over time; they're always not around when it happens, but they're usually unhappy with their manager by the time it does happen. The one we get to witness gets it from his own gun and a 5 or 6 bounce ricochet, while they're in the room pointing guns at each other. I don't know if the gun deaths would have been as funny after Tupac died in '96; here's a running list of rappers who've died, mostly by gunshot. Only 3 had occurred when this film was at Sundance, the 4th happened before released. We're up to 39 now, with 3 so far this year.
I can imagine that if you're well acquainted with rap you might find this funny. They pile on all the worst of the rap stereotypes: guns, misogyny, foul language, etc. My problem: you can't make rap more extreme than it already is, so how do you make it funny? Then again, that might be a 2018 problem, which is 25+ years beyond this film.
For contrast, the 4th cast member listed above plays a pretty sociologist doing her thesis using this group. She never breaks the educated vocabulary/pronunciation (unless she's quoting them, and then she still doesn't say it like they do). The contrast is somewhat amusing, especially her impartial calm when bad crazy things happen. But at the end, when we get the postscripts about where are they "now", and she's supposedly expecting a second child with one of the group (the writer/director/actor).
With some strong editing, this might have made a good skit or two on a comedy show. As a longgg 88min stream, Shrug minus, hence Avoid.
distr. Goldwyn, dir. Cundieff; 5
