'Sugar Hill' too cloying

directed by Leon Ichaso

Starring Wesley Snipes

When the audience at a film screening captures more attention and actually proves more interesting than the movie, there's a problem. The new movie "Sugar Hill" proves itself unworthy of the audience's attention because it cannot be received as the touching portrayal of one men's struggle to escape the drug trade when its storyline does not hold together. The film stars Wesley Snipes and Michael Wright as two brothers caught in a world of drugs, violence and warring factions in Harlem's swanky district, Sugar Hill, Snipes plays Roemello, the younger, more level-headed brother to Raynathan (Wright), a nervous, unguided and violent man who sees no way out and doesn't know how to maneuver from the inside. While each of these actors deliver strong acting jobs, their talent cannot overcome the horror of the cliche-ridden, predictable but unrealistic script.

As the credits came on the screen and the beautiful jazz music Harlem is so famous for began to play, I heard a critic next to me whisper to his companion, "This is going to be "New Jack City Two."" While I have not seen "New Jack City," the original, I can see why my neighbor would say this. The subject matter, I have been told, is the same: the horror and entrapment of the drug trade. This would make sense since both "New Jack City" and "Sugar Hill" were written by Barry Michael Cooper. "Sugar Hill" merely makes it a cliche. The disjointed script does not give the film's subject matter the credibility it deserves. I've heard "New Jack City" was a ground-breaking film, but why do we need to see a second and poorer version of it?

Imagine: (it should not be hard because we have all seen it before), Roemello, whose conscience has gotten the best to him, wants to get out of the racket. His older, helpless brother, Raynathan, desperately wants him to stay because he needs his guidance. Roemello wants to leave the neighborhood where the nightmares that plague him occurred; he witnessed his father's beating by the cops, his mother's heroin overdose, his father's further demise through addiction. Yet all of these scenes enter the film at seemingly random times. They give background to the plot but seem only to exist as plot fixtures. We get glimpses of the tragedies, which have happened but do not see any real connection between what has happened and what is occurring how. Raynathan, protected from many of these tragedies does not understand his brother's feelings. Yet he turns and commit the most horrible acts of revenge with seemingly no motive but to prevent his brother from leaving. All Raynathan can see are the new drug dealers who are impeding his turf. Enter trite love story for Roemello; a beautiful, melancholy aspiring actress Melissa (played by Theresa Randle) falls for Roemello, despite his long line of questionable credentials Roemello must decide whether he wants to stay in this hell or leave with Melissa. It should not be a very hard decision. The screenwriter, Barry Michael Cooper, and director, Leon Ichaso, must have thought differently. What could have been a half-hour drama is drama into a two-hour, drawn-out saga of a man supposedly torn between his past and future but without the substantial continuity of plot to make it believable.

This film sounds more cohesive in description than it was on the screen. With the two opposing forces in his life the audience supposedly sees the Roemello's conflict. But the way the story runs it feels as though the writer and director could not make up their mind whether they wanted a love story or a gangster movie. When one seems to be progressing nicely, the film cut to the other. I have never seen the two genres successfully integrated, save once, with Martin Scorcese's "Goodfellas." "Sugar Hill" certainly does not live up to the standards of that Oscar winner.

Without a cohesive storyline the pace of the film is inevitably without a rhythm. Lacking a steady pace, the film is not believable enough for the audience to empathize with violence shown throughout the film. People die for reasons which seem unrelated to the story's progression. The violence makes the viewer shudder, but the viewer is repulsed even more upon realizing that the killing is more gratuitous than necessary to the progression of the film. Granted, the film makers could pointing to the absurdity of the killing that occurs, but it could be done in more subtle, or at least meaningful ways. The climactic next-to-last scene of mass killing made the woman next to me duck her head and moan "Come on" with disbelief. At this point two men, disgusted with the inanity of it all, grabbed their coats and stormed out of the theater. Fortunately for them they missed the ridiculous miraculous ending which made the audience throw up their hands and scoff with disbelief.

By this point in the film I had my bags packed and I was ready to exit the theater too. Perhaps the whole film was, as the women in front of me said, "It's a Black thing, you wouldn't understand," but I still think the best part of the entire viewing experience was when the lights went up and I saw the exit sign beckoning me to leave.