Straight Out of Brooklyn not worth the dough

Although the name of a certain movie reviewer might find its sorry way onto the OFS hit list, somebody must tell the truth. Please forgive these two left feet for breaking any toes, but this week's shibboleth is - drum roll - Straight out of Brooklyn  sucks.

Obviously, director Matty Rich intended to create a "ficto-mentary" about the evolution of the African-American's fight to rise above his or her surroundings. But intentions, regardless of their nobility, don't make good movies. It seems that most praise of Brooklyn  is rooted in the mere fact that given the violent trend in African-American drama, this movie is a remarkable breath of fresh air in its clean and nonviolent depiction of the struggle to leave ghetto life. Even so, this quality makes the film less of a cutting-edge true story and more of a cultural tool for use in Catholic school theology classrooms.

Perhaps the lag in plot, yawningly predicable script, and canned acting stem from the adaptation of a largely theatrical work to film. A sense of working within the boundaries of a stage pervades the movie. Most scenes occur indoors, always from the same perspective, while many outdoor scenes tend to keep the actors on a kind of platform away from the camera. Rich maintains fairly consistent yet increasingly boring middle to long shots and standard camera angles throughout, and several scenes just rehash old textual and thematic material with different characters.

Whatever its faults, Brooklyn  is still worth a lark. In the most amusingly bad scene, a character by the name of Mr. Brown, lost in his drunken delirium, rails on the white man as the cause of his supposed failure as a father. The funny part is the dramatic pause of between two and seven seconds - count them - after every ... single ... teeny ... tiny ... line. It takes Oberlin less time to win a football game.

Also mildly funny are the redundant yet antic pair, Kevin and Larry Love, played by Marty Rich himself; the team pales in comparison to Clerks'  modern institution, Jay and Silent Bob, if only by virtue of monotonous predictability.

For those of you without anything better to do, go for it. Have your date pay.

Straight out of Brooklyn shows at 7:30, 9:15, and 11:00 for $1.