CAPSULE: Dope (2015, Dir. Rick Famuyiwa)

A lot of love has been thrown at Dope. It's the kind of style heavy teen coming-of-ager that gets audiences frothing with excitement. It's something a little different. Another, more diverse, more insightful angle on a genre that necessarily gets a do-over every couple of years.

On that score, Rick Famuyiwa's flick us up to the job and acquits with pre-requisite retro-panache, churning through the lives of a trio of old skool hip hop obsessed geeks (the '90s are so hot right now) who, led by their teenage-geek hormones, get sucked into a (very knowingly) stereotypical drug-dealing overworld.

Famuyiwa's pacey script, ably handled by all involved, especially going-places lead Shameik Moore, hits all the right notes but at the same time fails to register. There's something just a little off about the whole affair. The film's dyke positive on the one hand and fails its female "characters" on the other. There's a pumping hip hop vibe but the friends play in a punk-pop band (who knew the kids today were still down with The Thermals). It's genre-floutingly inventive one minute and falling into trope-worn groves the next.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that Dope's a whole lot of fun while it lasts but its curious missteps are too plentiful to find it dropping into the instant classic box it was obviously hankering after.

★★★☆

Trailer: