Checked out a movie that has utterly bombed at the box office called Sleight. Came in 18th place in its opening weekend so was shocked to see it still at a nearby theater the next weekend so I decided to check it out.
Sleight is about a young twenty-something black kid in Los Angeles who makes a living doing street magic (sleight of hand, hence the movie title) and being a low-level drug dealer. So right off the bat, the movie should annoy me since it’s another example of “let’s make a movie about black people who are, umm, drug dealers, yeah, that’s the ticket. Those blacks like to sell drugs and get into gang wars.” (note: this is me cynically calling out a cliche, not endorsing it). But the movie works because it takes that trope and marries it to how the kid uses sleigh-of-hand street magic to get out from under the boot heal of his increasingly violent low level crime boss.
You see, the kid has (hand-waving description time) implanted an electromagnet in his arm and run positive and negative leads to his pinkie and thumb. Using MAGNETISM! he can levitate small objects during his street shows. But, you know, if you power that up enough with larger batteries maybe you can, I dunno, rip a gun out of a gang-bangers hands?
This is an interesting movie that could have gone very wrong. It works mainly because it’s one of the best examples of show-don’t-tell… they have enough confidence in the movie goer to show his weird implant in the first twenty minutes but not explain it for another hour. Or show, without grand moralizing judgement, how he sells drugs to people and hustles his magic show both to support his sister. I could provide other examples of how the movie smartly tells its story and assuming we can follow it along without over-explaining. It’s one of the best scripted movies I’ve seen in a while.
So, yeah, if you happen to see this on cable or streaming in a few days (since, you know, 18th place), its worth checking out. It’s a good example of genre bending – taking the trappings of South Central gang movie and twisting it with magic and maybe a little hint of superhero. It’s well acted and assumes you are paying attention. It’s not the best movie out there but it’s really admirable in what it pulls off. A little sleigh-of-hand, you might say.
Score: 82