DMX portrays a small-time drug dealer and serial abuser of women in this movie about the start and death of a small-time drug dealer in Los Angeles.
Director Ernest Dickerson and writer James Gibson (from a novel by Donald Goines) seem to offer some message about the need to either not start down that path or get out before you must. However, despite that and Matthew Libatique's dark and color-drenched images, it's an updating of the Cecil B. Demille formula: the protagonist has a great time for seven reels, and is redeemed in the last. It varies the formula by making it a tragedy -- he doesn't get to redeem himself -- and by use of a constant voice-over by the lead letting the audience know where it's all going to end.
Director Ernest Dickerson and writer James Gibson (from a novel by Donald Goines) seem to offer some message about the need to either not start down that path or get out before you must. However, despite that and Matthew Libatique's dark and color-drenched images, it's an updating of the Cecil B. Demille formula: the protagonist has a great time for seven reels, and is redeemed in the last. It varies the formula by making it a tragedy -- he doesn't get to redeem himself -- and by use of a constant voice-over by the lead letting the audience know where it's all going to end.