Dope.
Dope is a 2015 coming of age dramedy directed by Rick Famuyiwa (Brown Sugar) and stars Shameik Moore as Malcolm in his first leading role. The cast is rounded out by Zoe Kravitz (Mad Max: Fury Road), Kiersey Clemons, Tony Revolori (Grand Budapest Hotel) and rapper A$AP Rocky.
In a nutshell, Dope is about a high schooler named Malcolm who is growing up in a bad neighborhood in LA yet is a straight-A student with ambitions of Harvard. He and his friends get tangled up in a drug situation leaving them with kilos of MDMA and a gun with the rest of the film showing how they deal with this situation.
Firstly, the chemistry between the 3 friends played by Moore, Clemons and Revolori is phenomenal, you truly believe that they've grown up together and have been friends for years and you feel like you're a part of their group too. The movie is actually pretty funny too, mostly due to the interactions within these 3 friends. The drama in the film is handled pretty well and there's a few parts toward the end of the movie where things get really real really fast yet it doesn't seem out of place because throughout the movie the balance between drama and comedy was blended seamlessly.
The most important thing in a coming of age movie is that the main character becomes a different person by the end of the film in a believable way and Dope succeeds in doing this. The movie takes place for the most part in what seems like a week, maybe a little shorter, but I think a lot of people can attest that in high school, a lot can change in 7 days, maybe not to the extent of the events of the movie but still.
It is impossible to talk about this movie and not bring up the music because it is such a part of the movie that the film would be different without it. Malcolm and his friends are throwback 90s hip hop heads and actively pursue looking and acting like it's currently 1995. I personally love hip hop, especially this era so when the movie plays a song from the 90's like Nas's "The World is Yours", I feel right at home. I also haven't wanted to buy a soundtrack this badly since Django Unchained and I'm real close to actually buying it.
Dope is not a movie for everybody, if you don't love hip hop you're experience will suffer a bit, not to say you can't enjoy it but you won't love it. Dope also tackles some pretty big topics such as stereotypes within race and racism itself; it's not as overt and in your face as American History X, it's subtle and seems to boil over a bit toward the end of the film in one of the best monologues in film that I've seen in a long time. You'll have a lot of fun with this movie and you'll be left thinking quite a bit after it's over about who you are and how people perceive you and a movie that can do that is pretty special.
Rewatchability: 5/5, I can see myself throwing this in my Blu-Ray player pretty much at will and will definitely be buying when it comes out, possibly even seeing it again in theaters if a friend is interested.
Rating: 4.5/5, almost got the perfect score but I just couldn't get it there. The acting was great except for Tyga but he's not in it enough to matter, the directing was good and even had some pretty cool slo-mo use and a couple parts that used a reverse-simulation really well. I tweeted this out earlier and I'll say it here as well, Dope is low key the movie of the summer, it's highly enjoyable and unlike most summer movies, it's smart. To be as lame as humanly possible and to put it in the best words possible, simply, Dope is dope.
P.S.: It doesn't have to be a sequel or anything but someone needs to get Shameik Moore, Kiersey Clemons and Tony Revolori in another movie together because they were seriously one of the best trios on camera in a long time and I need more.
