Waist "NOT" Deep

Ok lets start out by saying this movie was a complete disaster. From the elementary script to poor lighting, the film did little to leave the audience in suspense.

Waist Deep, starring (Tyrese Gibson) O2, (Meagan Good) Coco, and introducing The Game as Meat, had me up in arms ever since I saw the previews months ago. The movie appears to be your average Bonnie and Clyde flick with blood, money, and sex to push it all through. Waist Deep fails to deliver on all three. The R rating had to be implemented for the senseless murder and rage that was acted out in almost every scene; beginning with the opening credits.

O2 is a self-proclaimed good father whose sole purpose in the film is to show the world that he is a good dad and he’s worthy of his son Junior’s trust. After an unfortunate car jacking with Junior fast asleep in the back-seat, O2 is sent on a murderous rampage that leaves dozens dead, maimed or worse. In the midst of the entire murderously bloody rampage, O2 finds love with a beautiful street hustler, Coco who had a pimp to answer to at the end of her daily shifts. I mean she was gorgeous; and her job was parading up and down the “streets of the ghetto” selling men’s suits. After being accused by O2 for the kidnapping/car-jacking, Coco pledges her honor and love to help get Junior back.

Ok, that’s as far as I’m going to go with the synopsis of the movie. You can probably guess what happens from here. Meat of course, is the kidnapper and the story has a few twists in it that makes one sit there a bit longer just to see if they’d figured out the plot and ending correctly. All and all this film set us back fifteen years: right back into the explosive popularity of ‘hood films. I mean Menace II Society was understandable, given that things like killing over cheeseburgers was a reality in the early 90’s; but this shit was ridiculous.

There was one scene where O2 and Coco drive through what appears to be the Jungles, (a ghetto of South Los Angeles) and on one short block there were young girls shooting dice, a group of 'brothas jumping one guy, and all of Bebe’s kids chasing their car down squirting it with Super Soakers. It was a mess.

In an attempt to drop a message, protestors parade the ‘hood crying out annoyingly throughout the movie, “Save our streets!” Even that inkling of positivity is overshadowed as a clear joke. Each time you hear the chant you can rest assured there’s something violent going on at the same time. Another horrid choice in dialogue was the scene where O2 and Coco cruise down the Sunset strip and he asks her, “You ain't never been to the Sunset strip?” I mean come on. I thought this whole can’t leave the hood stuff was ancient history: I guess not.

The score was fun. The music helped the scenes along tremendously. The Game’s performance was rather good. He seems to take to acting as well as he did to the rap game.

I wondered as I walked into the theater why there was a badge sporting flashlight cop standing guard. Well, with movies like Waist Deep, and its negative stereotypes that I thought black cinema was attempting to stray away from; theaters can find an easy justification for heightened security.