Dennis, a young teenager living in a crime ridden housing project wants to live his American Dream. But he knows he will not get it by going to college. He wants to get out of Brooklyn and for that he needs money. He knows only streets will help him get his family out of poverty. This black oriented movie gives a chance to see the life of a regular black American family. Dennis has a loving mother, a submissive sister and a drunk and abusive father.
The ending is full of darkness, remorse and loss; it ends with a message which says, “First things learned are hard to forget. Traditions pass from one generation to the next. We need to change.” The first thing all the characters being played learned was that they are black and life is not a piece of cake for them. The movie was made by Matty Rich, when he was quite young, a teenager, he was a kid from Brooklyn housing projects and without any money power and backing; he made this movie and got it released.
The movie covers a few days in the lives of a high school kid (Dennis), who lives with his sister and his parents in a crime-ridden Brooklyn Red Hook project. The story begins with a lot of noise being made in the background by the father (Ray) who is drunk and beating s his wife and throwing things around the apartment while the kids are woken up from their sleep by loud voices. This is everyday life for Dennis and he decides to change it as he could not take it anymore.
Usually Dennis hangs out with two of his friends Kevin and Larry. Dennis convinces them to get onto the streets and get rich easy. Larry (played by Matty Rich) suggests them that may be they could get a job at a gas station. But Dennis is not willing to do something like that. He wants a lot of money and as fast as possible. His dream is to buy a condo, cars for his family, a good school and a comfortable life.
Dennis’s girlfriend (Shirley) asks him about his college plan, to which Dennis replies that he cannot wait 4-5 years. Looking at the Manhattan skyline, Dennis tells his girlfriend, “Do you think those people reached there by going to college. They reached there by breaking the rules and stepping onto the black men.” This was the first thing which Dennis learned in his life because his father is abusive and venomous because of this very reason.
Ray is angry with everyone. Once sitting in the middle of night, waiting for the Dennis, he expresses his anguish with some heart-touching lines. He says, “ Hey white man, I am the man you destroyed. Just the way you destroyed my father and his father, just how you destroyed my life, you are going to destroy my son’s life too.”
For most of the movie, the characters stand poised between two possible choices - between crime and trying to do the right thing. But the movie finds time to develop some of their complexities as they make up their minds, in well-written scenes such as the one where the mother actually defends her husband, even though he beats her.
The father is taking out his humiliations on his family, the mother goes crazy when she hears a guns shot for the fear that her boy is on the sharp end of the gun, where children are ridiculed for having dreams as modest as that of actually finishing school. Everyone is fighting their own but related fears.
Dennis may hate his father, but he is able to take a longer view of Ray's predicament. There are a few moments, like when Ray mentions to his son that he wanted to become a doctor, where you can see how the boy is tempering his own rage toward his father. This sort of thing helps to explain why, when Ray gets the drug money, he wants to include his father in on the move to Manhattan. Dennis still clings to the fantasy that his family can be made whole. This dream of Denniss’ is his final patch of innocence. In a way, he is as far gone as his father; he doesn't realize that Ray is already past salvation.
Dennis and his friends concoct a plan to rob a drug dealer, reasoning that he's helping destroy the community anyway so it isn't morally wrong to take his money. It is, of course, terribly stupid. They get away with the cash, but everything goes terribly wrong almost immediately. The dealer and his ruthless associates mount a relentless search for the thieves, and Dennis realizes there's no way he's going to get away unscathed. Meanwhile, Ray beats Frankie nearly to death, and the drug dealers kill him while the children are at the hospital with their mother.
The movie ends on a very sad note where Frankie (the mother) dies in hospital of bruises and Ray is shot down by dealers who were looking for Dennis and their money. Dennis lost everything at the hands of his naïve dream.
Making such movies is part of an effort to lift yourself out of society's hatreds, of putting yourself out there and stirring up the audiences. This movie avoids the glamorous violence that so often passes for black life in the movies.
There are also many scenes of everyday life, goofing around, small talk and passing time. It all adds up to a convincing portrayl of a big-city black teenager who feels that if he does not take some sort of conclusive action, life will clamp him into poverty and discouragement. He wants to live the American dream every American imagines about and he knows he cannot do it by going to college, he thinks, it is only possible by getting out of Brooklyn and onto the streets. This plan of Denniss’ gets his family engulfed into trauma and ruins everything in the end.
This was an honest and effective film, which came from heart.
