SLAM A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
"Welcome to the DC jail," the tough guard barks matter-of-factly to the new inmate. "You might make it out of here, and you might not." He then rattles off, drill sergeant fashion, the depressing statistics for the percentages of African-American adult males in our nation's capitol who are incarcerated. Challenging the newest prisoner to "do the math," he paints a picture that is not encouraging.
Ray Joshua, a "performance poet" in his first acting role, plays Saul Williams the charismatic protagonist of SLAM. SLAM was a major award winner at this year's Sundance and Cannes film festivals.
Ray has the bad luck to be at the scene of a shooting, where the police catch him with a half-pound of marijuana on him. Ray is a gentle soul whose passion is his poetry, which he does rapid fire, rap style but without music. Williams wrote the pieces he performs. ("You massage the universe's spine as you twirl through time," starts one of his typical poems.)
(A "slam" is a form of competitive poetry that is practiced throughout the country. A fascinating woman known as the "Slam Granny," who was at our press screening, explained the basic ideas and the rules to me. The movie would have been much better if the slams were more prevalent in it.)
Although director Marc Levin gets the poetry part right, probably because his background is in documentaries, the rest of the movie is pretty thin. The jail fight sequences, for example, are amateurishly choreographed. There is also a pseudo-sappy romantic subplot with the jail's poetry teacher (Sonja Sohn). Her funds are cut off by the government, which she claims no longer cares about rehabilitation.
Ray's salvation is his art. When up against a sea of buff bodies in the prison's exercise yard, he bursts out in poetry. The men, with their rippling muscles bordering on explosion, don't know what to make of someone like Ray.
At the prison poetry group, in which one of the cons reads a poem about his killing 3 people when he was only 15, Ray seems at home. Eventually, Ray will perform at a slam, and there he finally really comes into his own, as his poetry flies out of his mouth with great intensity and power.
The big question for Ray is will he "cop a plea" as his court appointed lawyer recommends or will he fight it out in court. His odds in a court of law are miserable, his lawyer tells him with all the gravity he can muster. The movie wisely provides no easy answers for Ray.
SLAM runs 1:40. It is rated R for profanity, sex, violence, and drugs and would be fine for older teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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