N.Y. teen drama 'Loots' success
Comedic love story about two inner-city taggers, baseball and vandalism.
BASEBALL SEASON is here, and with it the reinvigorating rituals of spring, such as saying "screw the Mets."
It's a popular phrase in the movie "Gimme the Loot," except the movie is salty, so nobody bothers with a PG word like "screw." The movie can also be recommended for the horrible things some of the characters say about Derek Jeter.
As a bonus, it's built around a mythic, baseball-related quest: To deface the loathsome Mets' Home Run Apple, imported from Shea and installed at Citi Field, a prized target of spray-paint vandals throughout the Northeast.
Two of these "taggers" are Sophia (Tashiana Washington) and Malcolm (Ty Hickson), Bronx youngsters whose mission one idle summer day is to penetrate Citi and paint their names in graffiti history.
"Gimme the Loot" is loose, comedic, episodic and rigidly nonjudgmental about the lives of its shoplifting, vandalizing leads, and sneaky about the way it frames their activities in a way that invites sympathy - they're amateurs, who during the course of the movie are robbed, mugged and victimized by more effective petty criminals.
Their spray painting (Sophia practices her designs) has enough artistic merit to it to ascend from vandalism. And in any case, in American storytelling, two youngsters painting a wall reaches all the way back to Twain. And while this ain't "Life on the Mississippi," it is a pretty vivid slice-of-life look at New York on a summer day.
It emerges from the escapades of Malcolm and Sophia, trying to raise $500 to pay off the stadium security guard - their fund-raising scheme involves one harebrained (usually illegal) idea after another.
They end up losing more revenue than they generate, but we gain a cockeyed, revealing view of the city. With its minimalist camera work, outsider ethos and offbeat musical selections, the movie has echoes of Jim Jarmusch.
One standout bit has Malcolm delivering dope to a bored midtown girl, whose hot/cold attitudes toward Malcolm provide a vivid little parable about race and class and circumstance.
The movie also ends up giving us a snapshot of two teens who haven't figured out if they're in love. They're young, finding their way, on the cusp of something.
For them, it's opening day.