Sucker Free City

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: George Cheung, James Hong, John Savage, Kathy Baker, Ken Leung
Cinematographer: C?sar Charlone
Composer: Terence Blanchard
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Showtime Ent.

Movie Reviews of Sucker Free City

Movie Review: Only half way there
Summary: 3 Stars

This movie tries to show the 'real' life of San Francisco's communities, white, black and Chinese and the 'gangs' within them. The idea here is to do a sort of 'Snatch' where three sub-plots are interwoven. However the great failing here is the terrible acting of the white and asian 'gangs'. It turns out that the only portion of the film that is portrayed in all its grit and tragedy is the black community. For some reason it is as if the director was out of touch with the white and asian communities, which was probably the case and couldnt write for those actors or direct them. Thus the movie get sby on being a 'Spike Lee Joint' but fails in two out of three story lines. Despite attempts to get away from stereotypes regarding the Chinese in fact the film reinforces them and the characters are bland. The only truly honest character in the film is the father of the white family whose liberal pacifist 'the bars on our windows offend our african-American neighbors and force them to break into our house' truly mirrors what takes place among a certain class of people in America. However it doesnt ring true that such a person would end up living in a 99% Black ghetto, just another unrealistic twist. Also unrealisitc is why the white protagonist is working at an investment bank and living with his family. His sister is described as a 'hippie' but isn't one. There are virtually no female characters portrayed in the film and the three that are only seem to fulfill the roles of being promiscous. There is only one line in the entire film devoted to a young black female actress.

Basicaly a film that only gets half way there. It supposedly portrays attempts at 'coexistence' and the trouble people have breaking out of their community and stereotypes but fails in many respects to depict reality. There is no racism portrayed among the Asian 'mafia' and yet this is obviously another terrible fallacy. At least the film depicts in brutal honesty the racism among Blacks towards whites entering 'their' community.

Also it leaves one wondering where the hispanic-latino community is in all this. Hispanics now make up 50% of California and there are many Latino gangs and yet they dont seem to have a role in this film apparently, again, because no one knew how to write their part into it. The only hispanic role in the film is of the police investigator, which is better than nothing one supposes.

Seth J. Frantzman

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All Sucker Free City Movie Reviews

Summary of Sucker Free City

As is the case with many of director Spike Lee's films, especially the better ones, the issue of race is at the center of Sucker Free City, a 2004 pilot for an original Showtime series. In this instance, the tension is both inter- and intra-racial, as Lee and writer Alex Tse focus on three displaced young men from three very separate San Francisco cultural groups: Nick (Ben Crowley), a white kid with a straight day job and a couple of criminal hustles on the side; Keith, aka K-Luv (an exceptional performance by Anthony Mackie), a member of the African-American gang the V-Dubs; and Lincoln (Ken Leung), a junior member of the Chinese Mafia who spends most of his time extorting payoffs from local businesses. That these three and their respective crews will eventually cross paths is inevitable, but it happens in ways both expected (when Nick's family moves into the predominantly black Hunter's Point neighborhood, they're immediately harassed, and worse, by the V-Dubs) and otherwise (K-Luv's aspirations as a CD bootlegger leads to alliances of a sort with both Nick and Lincoln). The cast is sizeable (look for a brief but effective turn by Jim Brown), and while the potential for rampant stereotyping is there, Lee and Tse deftly avoid it; K-Luv, for instance, is clearly unsettled by the violent ways of the V-Dubs, and his palpable inner conflict emerges in some very surprising ways. Gritty and unflinching (the film's violence is considerable but not especially graphic; the profanity is virtually non-stop), Sucker Free City mostly rings true. Alas, Showtime chose not to pick up the series, so one can only wonder what further episodes might have revealed. --Sam Graham

Sucker Free City is an original film directed by Spike Lee that takes a riveting look at the seductive, dangerous world and life choices of a diverse group of young people inextricably caught up in the unique gang culture of San Francisco. When racial tension erupts and emotions collide three young men from different ethic backgrounds perpetrate low-level crimes that eventually infringe upon each other's neighborhoods. As their lives intersect on the streets, will they come to realize they are not all that different from one another or will they fight to keep their neighborhoods?

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