by: Hem Chander
The Land is a debut feature of the writer-director, Steven Caple Jr. As with many debut features, Caple Jr. falls into the lucrative trap of trying to paint a small canvas with too many colors. The film follows four friends, Cisco (Jorge Lendeberg Jr.), Junior (Moises Arias), Patty Cake (Rafi Gavron), and Boobie (Ezri Walker) who spend their time skateboarding and filming their stunts around Cleveland. They are faced with a reality that eventually they’ll have to work menial jobs for the rest of their life. Although well intentioned, they sometimes go around the neighborhood, stealing cars. In one of these robberies, they come across a drugdealer’s car and find pills in the trunk. Cisco tries to convince his friends that the only way to get out of this neighborhood is by selling those pills for cash and entering in a skateboarding competition. He hopes that the competition would eventually lead to fame and they would be able to make something out of themselves. However, the drugs belong to a drug queenpin called Momma (Tony nominated actress Linda Edmond), and thus begins a game of cat and mouse.
Although the cast is reasonably talented, the characters don’t seem etched out well enough in order for the audience to feel any personal connection with them. Linda Edmond tries her best to give credence to the character of Momma, but at no point makes the character seem menacing or sympathetic and reduces it to a caricature of Cruella DeVille, minus the silliness. The movie also stars Michael Kenneth Williams as Boobie’s laborious father, eliciting comparisons to a similar crime drama, “The Wire”. In many places, the plot seemed to be inspired by The Wire, especially the underlying theme of some kids trying to escape urban decadence. The film features appearances by the rapper Machine gun Kelly, and the singer Erykah Badu which are more or less decent.
All in all, this film is a decent debut for the filmmaker Steven Caple Jr. who tries hard and moderately succeeds in giving a new spin to the run of the mill coming of age stories. Although he couldn’t dunk this time, he seems to have a fresh perspective which makes him a filmmaker to watch out for in the future.
Score: 6/10
