Culture Representation: Taking place in Biloxi, Mississippi, and in New Orelans, the action film “Fast Charlie” (based on the novel “Gun Monkeys” features a predominantly white cast of characters portraying the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: An assassin goes on a mission to get revenge on the crime boss who masacred many of the assassin’s colleagues.
Culture Audience: “Fast Charlie” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Pierce Brosnan and action films about feuding criminals that have an amusing edge.
Gbenga Akinnagbe (pictured in front) in “Fast Charlie” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)
The dark comedy in “Fast Charlie” can get a little dicey and off-kilter, but this crime caper has a winning performance from Pierce Brosnan as a world-weary assassin. It’s a violent movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously and has some funny surprises. When the outlandish jokes work well in “Fast Charlie,” they’re the best things in the movie.
Directed by Phillip Noyce and written by Richard Wenk, “Fast Charlie” is based on Victor Gischler’s 2001 novel “Gun Monkeys.” The movie is a mostly skillful blend of grisly action and crime noir with a somewhat satirical tone. “Fast Charlie” features some voiceover narration from protagonist Charlie Swift (played by Pierce Brosnan), an assassin who is the type of killer who maintains a gentlemany air about him, even when he’s committing ruthless acts of violence.
The opening scene begins in New Orleans, where Charlie has been cornered by in a junkyard by an enemy who is not yet seen on camera Charlie is ordered by this nemesis to take off his trousers. Charlie then says in a voiceover that reveals his inner thoughts at that moment: “I always thought my life would end like this in some godforsaken place, from a bullet I didn’t see coming. I just thought I’d never care.” Much later the movie, “Fast Charlie” circles back to these scene, with viewers knowing that that point how Charlie ended up there.
Most of “Fast Charlie” takes place in Biloxi, Mississippi, where Charlie lives. (“Fast Charlie” was actually filmed in Louisiana.) He works for a crime lord named Stan Mullen (played by James Caan, in one of his last on-screen performances), who has been Charlie’s friend for the past 33 years. Charlie is a bachelor who lives alone and has no children. Stan treats the people who work for him like his family, including having cookouts at his house.
While he’s in Biloxi, Charlie gets ready to go on a job to kill someone by putting on a casual business suit. Charlie says in a voicever: “One thing you don’t want to see is me in a suit this early in the morning, which means I’m working, which means someone is about to depart this life unexpectedly.” A running joke in the movie is that Charlie talks more like a college professor than an ignorant thug
The target of this murder is a man named Rollo, who is a low-level criminal based in New Orleans. Rollo has apparently stolen some money and done some other things that have put a hit on him. Charlie is joined by a goofy assistant named Blade (played by Brennan Keel Cook), who is fairly new to Stan’s crew.
Blade, who got this nickname because he’s known using knives as murder weapons, has chosen a different tactic to kill Rollo. Blade proudly tells Charlie that he knows Rollo loves donuts, so Blade is going to pretend to be a donut delivery person giving a surprise gift to Rollo at the house where Rollo is.
Blade shows off the T-shirt he made for the occasion. The T-shirt says “Crispy Cream,” not “Krispy Kreme.” Charlie points out the error, but Blade cheerfully doesn’t care. Blade delivers the box of donuts, which contained a bomb planted in one of the donuts.
When Charlie and Blade go inside the house after the explosion, they see that Rollo’s head has been blown off and is completely destroyed. And now, Charlie and Blade have to figure out a way for to prove that the headless body really is Rollo. (Yes, it’s that kind of movie.)
Charlie happens to know the name of Charlie’s ex-wife Marcie (played by Morena Baccarin), so he quickly tracks her down and tells her about Rollo’s death. Marcie, who is a taxidermist who works at home, tells Charlie she isn’t surprised that Rollo was murdered, based on all the shady things she knew he was doing. Marcie is also smart enough to figure out that Charlie is a hit man who was involved in Charlie’s death, especially when he offers her $5,000 if he can identify the body. There’s an immediate and obvious spark between Charlie and Marcie the first time that they meet each other.
Marcie declines the offer and says she’ll do it for free. It just so happens she knows exactly how to identify Rollo. She tells Charlie that shortly after Marcie and Rollo were married, they got matching tattoos on their butt cheeks. This matching tattoo is used for a few sight gags in “Fast Charlie.” If this type of comedy doesn’t interest you, then “Fast Charlie” is not for you.
Stan and Charlie, who have a father/son type of relationship, are very loyal and protective of each other. Stan, who uses a wheelchair, is showing signs of dementia. Other people who work for Stan include Benny Moran (played by Toby Huss), who runs Stan’s “gentlemen’s clubs”; Paulie (played by Jacob Grodnik), Stan’s chauffeur; and Tony D (played by Don Yesso), who runs Stan’s gambling operations.
A massacre happens that kills several of Charlie’s co-workers, who were like family to him. Charlie immediately suspects that a crime boss named Beggar (played by Gbenga Akinnagbe) is responsible for this murder spree, because Stan had rejected Beggar’s invitation to meet with Beggar to discuss a possible business alliance. The rest of “Fast Charlie” involves Charlie on a mission to find out who was responsible for the massacre and to get revenge.
Along the way, Charlie begins courting Marcie, who is understandably reluctant to get romantically involved again with someone living a life of crime. However, they have an undeniable attraction to each other. Charlie (who says he’s fascinated with Italian culture) has dropped hints that he’s ready to retire and could possibly move to Italy.
During their first date, Charlie takes Marcie to an Italian restaurant and asks her why she wanted to become a taxidermist. She replies, “I like giving everlasting life to something that didn’t have a chance at one. I restore their dignity. When I give a hunter back his trophy, I want the animal to haunt his dreams.”
In other words, Marcie is not a mindless pushover. She’s got grit but a lot of heart. The snappy dialogue between Charlie and Marcie is one of the more entertaining aspects of “Fast Charlie,” which manages to make this romance both believable amid all the over-the-top violence. Brosnan and Baccarin give consistently engaging performances that will have viewers rooting for Charlie and Marcie.
The comedy is what makes “Fast Charlie” sizzle in what would be an otherwise mediocre murder mystery. The movie has some off-the-wall moments, such as a cameo from Sharon Gless, who portrays Rollo’s foul-mouthed mother Mavis, who despises Marcie. Mavis has only scene in the movie, but it’s absolutely hilarious. “Fast Charlie” isn’t a classic crime thriller, but it’s entertaining to watch for viewers who can tolerate some offbeat jokes with bloody violence.
Vertical released “Fast Charlie” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 8, 2023.
Jeffrey Robinson, Hank Sanders and Faya Ora Rose Touré in “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” (Photo by Jesse Wakeman/Sony Pictures Classics)
Culture Representation: The documentary “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” features a predominantly African American group (with a few white people) of civil rights activists, entrepreneurs, historians and authors discussing the racial prejudices and challenges experienced by people of color, particularly African American men, in the United States.
Culture Clash: The documentary, led by civil rights activist/attorney Jeffrey Robinson, has the premise that people cannot truly be honest about racism in America without acknowledging that America was built on white supremacy that oppresses non-white people in entrenched systems that still exist today.
Culture Audience: “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” will appeal primarily to people interested in historical accounts of racial bigotry in America that have a personal touch (due to Robinson’s on-camera narration and interviewing), but don’t expect there to be much discussion about racism against people who aren’t African American men.
Jeffrey Robinson in “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” (Photo by Jesse Wakeman/Sony Pictures Classics)
“Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” is partly a filmed lecture by scholar Jeffrey Robinson, partly a historical account and partly a personal journey taken by Robinson to retrace past experiences with racism and race relations. The movie features compelling interviews and information but puts an overwhelming emphasis on bigotry inflicted on black men. The documentary should have been more inclusive of other people of color who experience racism too.
For example, the documentary has almost no acknowledgement of the genocide of Native Americans that allowed white Europeans to take over the land that is now known as the United States of America. You can’t have a truly comprehensive discussion about racism in America without including the brutally honest but necessary history explaining how white people became the dominant race in a part of North America where Native Americans were the dominant race for centuries. The documentary also does not cover the well-documented and shameful examples of U.S. government-sanctioned racism and other forms of bigotry experienced by Latinos and Asians in America.
“Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” (directed by sisters Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler) is nevertheless a well-intentioned film and addresses many important topics about racial discrimination. The title is just a little misleading though. A more accurate title would be “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism Against Black Men in America.” That’s because almost all of the examples of racist hate crimes that are examined in this documentary are crimes in America against black men. This documentary packs in a considerable amount of information in its 118-minute running time, but the vast scope of what this documentary intended would have been better-suited as a docuseries instead of a feature-length film.
“Who Are Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” made the rounds at several film festivals, including the SXSW Film Festival, Hot Docs, AFI Fest and DOC NYC. It’s the type of movie that is supposed to make people uncomfortable because it covers uncomfortable truths that many people want to deny or forget. The documentary sounds an alarm that there’s still a lot of work to be done in healing from and preventing the damage of racism that is still pervasive today.
If it seems like “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” has a well-articulated and methodical tone of attorneys presenting a case, that’s because several attorneys or people with legal backgrounds were involved in the making of this film. Jeffrey Robinson, the movie’s on-screen narrator and interviewer, is an attorney who founded the Who We Are Project non-profit group to combat racism. Proceeds from this documentary will go to Who We Are Project. He has a background working as a deputy legal director and the director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Trone Center for Justice and Equality, as well as a public defender and an attorney in private practice.
Robinson, Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler are among the producers of “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America.” Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler (who co-founded the social-justice film production company Off Center Media) are two of the daughters famed civil rights attorney William Kunstler. Sarah is a practicing attorney. Emily’s mother is attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler.
When white directors make a documentary or any project about white supremacist racism, some people will automatically question the validity or authenticity of the project. Emily Kunstler responded to this skepticism by making this statement in the “Who We Are” documentary’s production notes: “Throughout the making of this film, one of the questions we often get is why are two white women making this film? Our answer is that the history of slavery in the United States is not Black history, it is American history; a history of white supremacy and white complicity as well as a history of Black oppression and resistance. Growing up, Sarah and I were taught that it was our moral responsibility to stand up against racism and fight for justice. This responsibility includes learning and sharing our country’s painful history.”
“Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” has three distinctive types of footage that are all interwoven seamlessly throughout the film:
(1) A filmed speaking appearance about American racism that Robinson did in June 2018 at New York City’s Town Hall. This footage was directed by Gbenga Akinnagbe, who is one of the producers of this documentary.
(2) Archival footage of many of the people, places and events discussed in the documentary.
(3) Interviews about racism in America that Robinson conducted in various U.S. cities.
Robinson has an engaging style of public speaking that is partly like a scholarly history teacher, partly like an intellectual sociologist and partly like an impassioned civil rights activist. He infuses his recitation of alarming statistics and data about racism with his own personal anecdotes, in order to make the information more relatable. He sometimes cracks sarcastic jokes to lighten the mood. Other times, his facial expressions show the emotional pain of remembering being the target of racism and feeling empathy to others who’ve also experienced this type of hatred and discrimination.
In the documentary’s opening scene, Robinson is seen on stage at the Town Hall appearance addressing a common argument that some people have when trying to minimize the damage caused by slavery in America. Robinson says that these deniers often say, “‘Slavery is not our responsibility.’ But it’s our shared history. And when we try to turn it into something that it’s not, when we try to make more light of what it was, then we are denying who we really are and are impeding our ability to move forward as a community and as a nation.”
As an example of how divisive people’s opinions are about how slavery in America should be remembered, the documentary mentions the ongoing debates of whether or not certain slave owners in American history should be celebrated. Controversies over which public statues should be removed or which architectural structures should be renamed indicate that this is a hot-button topic that won’t be going away anytime soon. Oftentimes, when people talk about not removing these statues or other tributes, they say it’s about “being patriotic.” But does “being patriotic” mean embracing historical racists as heroes?
In the documentary, Robinson shares his opinion on where people should draw the line: If a historical figure (especially a slave owner) is best known for doing things that advocated for keeping slavery and/or racial segregation legal, then those historical figures should not be celebrated with public statues, structures or any government-funded institutions named after them. If a historical figure’s accomplishments consist mainly of progress for the United States that’s greater than the fact that the historical figure participated in enslaving people when it was legal in the United States, then it’s best to not remove the statue or tribute. Robinson cites former U.S. presidents who were slave owners (George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, to name a few) as examples of historical figures who shouldn’t be “erased” or “cancelled,” because their legacies for what they did in U.S. history far outweigh the fact that they owned slaves.
Several of the flashpoint events in civil rights history are mentioned during Robinson’s Town Hall speaking appearance, which includes a Power Point-type visual presentation on stage. These tragedies include the 1921 massacre and burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmitt Till, who was brutally slaughtered by two white men in Money, Mississippi, after Till was wrongfully accused of whistling at a white woman; and the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. For many of these tragic events, Robinson goes to the scene and/or interviews people who were associated in some way to the victims of these hate crimes.
In Tulsa, Robinson interviews Lessie Benningfield Randle, one of the last known survivors of the Tulsa massacre. Even though she was a little girl when the massacre happened, she still has horrific memories of this tragedy. She witnessed people being shot and bodies piled up on the street. “I never want to see anything like that again,” she says with a haunted look in her eyes.
Also in Tulsa, Robinson visits Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, the twin sister of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed college student who was killed in 2016 by a white police officer named Betty Jo Shelpy, who claimed self-defense. Dr. Cruther says that her brother was not identified as a suspect when Shelpy arrived on the scene and that the media “dehumanized” him as a criminal when in fact he was not a criminal. “He laid on the street like an animal,” she says bitterly about how her brother’s dead body was unattended to for hours.
While in Memphis (Robinson’s childhood hometown), Robinson visits the Lorraine Motel, the site of King’s assassination. Robinson describes his own father as someone who was involved in the civil rights movement, and he has vivid memories of being taken to protest marches as a child. Also in Memphis, Robinson has an emotional reunion with Robert “Opie” Orians, a former classmate and friend of Robinson’s when they both attended St. Louis Catholic School and were on the school’s basketball team. Jeffrey Robinson and his older brother Herbert Robinson (who appears briefly in another part of the documentary) were the first black students at the school.
Opie’s father Richard Orians is also part of the reunion with Opie and Jeffrey. Richard, who used to coach the school’s basketball team, talks about an incident when the St. Louis team was barred from entry for a game at a rival school because a black student (Jeffrey) was on the St. Louis team. All three men get emotional, with eyes tearing up and voices cracking, when Richard says that, out of principle, he removed the team from the premises because he didn’t want to the team to be associated with a school that would make this racist decision. At the time, Richard says that he protected the team by not telling them the real reason why they were withdrawing from the game.
Jeffrey also remembers another racist incident he experienced as a child during a basketball game, when someone on the other team called him the “n” word. Jeffrey’s father was watching the game nearby, so Jeffrey went to his father to complain about the racist insult. Jeffrey remembers his father’s empathetic but stern response: “What do you want to do about it?”
His father asked Jeffrey if he would rather quit the game and let the racist feel superior, or stay in the game to prove to the racist that a racist slur wasn’t going to stop Jeffrey from playing the game. Jeffrey decided to stay in the game. He said it was an early lesson in not letting racists get what they want when they using racist insults and other forms of racism to make the targets of their hate feel inferior or defeated.
Jeffrey shares another personal story when he meets up with Kathie Fox, whose mother-in-law Mildred was the realtor of the Robinson family. The family—Jeffrey’s parents Herbert Sr. and Lameris; older brother Herbert Jr.; and younger brother Larry (who appears briefly in this documentary); and Jeffrey—couldn’t move into a mostly white neighborhood until Mildred enlisted her married white friends Lib and Pat Smith to buy a house in the neighborhood and then transfer the deed to Herbert Sr. and Lameris. Jeffrey remembers the look of shock on some neighbors’ faces when his family moved into the neighborhood. It was not uncommon for African American families to have to ask white allies to be their proxies to buy a house in a white neighborhood, because racist realtors would not sell houses to black people.
Also in Memphis, Jeffrey meets up with Tami Sawyer, a Shelby County commissioner of District 7, who led the charge to take down a statue in Memphis of Nathan Bedford, a Confederate Army general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Sawyer says there’s no legitimate excuse for any past or present member of the KKK to be honored with a publicly funded statue that makes that person look like a hero. Still, the people who successfully lobbied to have the statue removed got a lot of resistance from those who say statues like that represent “Southern pride.” To other people, these types of statues are symbols of racist white supremacy.
While visiting Clayborn Temple in Memphis, Jeffrey interviews Carolyn Payne, whose unarmed brother Larry Payne was shot to death by a cop when Larry was 18 years old. Larry was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time, since there was no evidence that he did anything wrong. Nothing ever happened to the cop who killed Larry. Carolyn says that she and her family will probably never know what really happened because she thinks there was a racist cover-up by the police who were involved. Sadly, there are too many other incidents like this to put into just one documentary.
In Alabama, Jeffrey visits author Josephine Bolling McCall, whose father Elmore Bolling was murdered in 1967, for being “too successful to be a Negro,” according to a newspaper report that she reads out loud and which is shown in the documentary. She describes how her family found her father shot to death in a ditch. “It’s ingrained in my memory,” she says with heartbreak. No one was indicted for this crime.
While in Selma, Alabama, Jeffrey speaks with retired Alabama senator Hank Sanders and activist Faya Ora Rose Touré, who are part of a group of citizens who want the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to be renamed the Freedom Bridge. Edmund Pettus was a Grand Dragon in the KKK. Considering the historical significance of Selma in the civil rights movement, many people think it’s an insult that there’s a bridge in Selma (or anywhere, for that matter) named after someone who was proud to be a racist.
While in Charleston, South Carolina, Jeffrey visits the Old Slave Mart Museum, where operations manager Ista Clarke gives a harrowing, detailed description of what it was like for slaves to be bought and sold there. Also in Charleston, Jeffrey accompanies Sights and Insights Tours owner Al Miller on a trip to the Ashley Avenue Oak Tree, which was the site of numerous lynchings, mainly of African American men. It’s mentioned that in almost all of these lynching cases, the victims were lynched not for doing anything wrong but for not being white.
African Americans are the vast majority of people who are interviewed in this documentary, but one white person is interviewed who represents people who think that the Confederate flag is not a symbol of racist hate. In Charleston, Jeffrey talks to one of three white men standing outside on the street while holding the Confederate flag. The three men are from a pro-Confederate flag group called Flags Across the South. It should be noted that although these men claim to be proud to stand up for their cause, they’re all wearing hats and sunglasses, as if they don’t want their faces to be fully exposed.
Jeffrey talks to Flags Across the South chairman Braxton Spivey on the street. And what Spivey has to say can only be described as being making excuses for slavery. Spivey comments, “Slavery had nothing to do with the [Civil] War. It was about money.” Spivey adds, “Slaves were treated like family,” and he believes that enslaved people “chose to stay” in captivity.
Jeffrey looks visibly disgusted at Spivey’s historically inaccurate rhetoric and blatant racism. When Spivey is asked if he would ever want to be owned as a slave, he admits he would not. But the subtext of what Spivey believes is that he thinks that white people shouldn’t be the slaves in society. Jeffrey shakes his head as he walks away and comments on Spivey: “Facts are not important to that gentleman.”
While in New York City, Jeffrey talks to law student Darren Martin, who had the cops called on him when he was moving into his apartment. Apparently, an unidentified neighbor assumed that because Martin is African American, his moving activities were thieving activities. Martin says that six police officers responded to the complaint as if he were a criminal, even though he showed proof that he was a new resident of the building and he was moving in. Like many people who experience this type of racism, Martin took out his phone and video recorded the incident. His video went viral and made the news.
Also in New York City, Jeffrey interviews Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed African American man who died in 2013 after a police officer put Garner in a chokehold and Garner repeatedly yelled, “I can’t breathe!” The cop acted with this type of force in response to seeing Garner illegally selling loose cigarettes. That incident was captured on video, made international news, and became a touchstone tragedy that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.
Carr describes her slain son: “He was a gentle giant.” She also says that she went into a deep depression after his death but then had a spiritual awakening: “The Holy Spirit spoke to me one evening” and asked if she was going be dead like her son, or if she was “going to get up, lift up his name, and let people know exactly who he was, and not let the media demonize him. Even though it’s too late for my son, we have to save other lives.”
While in New York City, Jeffrey interviews Inside Out Tours managing director Stacey Toussaint, who talks about how slave labor was the backbone of New York City, which was a financial hub for insurance and financing of the slave trade. Toussaint says that she wants more people to understand that even though Southern states are often singled out as the worst states in America for racism, the reality is that racism can be anywhere.
Other people interviewed in the documentary are Chief Egunwale F. Amusan, president of the African Ancestral Society in Tulsa; Reverend Dr. Robert Turner, pastor of Historic Vernon Chapel A.M.E. Church in Tulsa; Kristi Williams, a Historic Greenwood/Black Wall Street historian; and Jeffrey’s nephew Matthew Liam Brooks, whom Jeffrey raised as a son after Brooks’ mother died.
During his Town Hall speaking appearance, Jeffrey says that dealing with racism means dealing with the ugly fact that many people are too heavily invested in keeping white supremacist racism in the economy and other systems that affect people lives. And when it comes to stopping racism, he makes this pointed observation: “A lot of people say they want change. They just don’t want the change to cost them anything or require them to change anything about the way they are living.”
One of the best ways to sum up the point of this documentary is from something that Jeffrey says in his Town Hall speaking engagement: “America has demonstrated its greatness time and time and time again, and America is one of the most racist countries on the face of the earth. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. It is not an either/or. And the reason I’m asking us to think about this is that literally, the future is at stake.”
Sony Pictures Classics will release “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” in select U.S. cinemas on January 14, 2022.
Culture Representation: Set in the tough streets of New York City’s Bronx borough, this suspenseful drama has a predominantly African American cast of characters representing the poor and middle class.
Culture Clash: An 18-year-old aspiring dancer, who’s fixated on getting a yellow coat to wear in a music video, finds herself unexpectedly taking care of her underage sisters while trying to hide from child welfare authorities.
Culture Audience: This movie will appeal mostly to people interested in stories about urban street life, from the perspective of African American characters.
Slick Woods in “Goldie” (Photo courtesy of Film Movement)
“Goldie” takes viewers on a frenetic ride over a few days in the life of sassy aspiring dancer Goldie (played by Slick Woods, in a charismatic feature-film debut), an 18-year-old who lives in New York City’s Bronx borough. Goldie unexpectedly finds herself taking care of her underage younger sisters while trying to dodge Child Protective Services. Along the way, she learns things about herself and what she really wants out of life.
In the beginning of the movie, Goldie’s only preoccupation seems to be figuring out a way to get her big break as a dancer. She’s seen running through the streets to get to New Hope Community Center, where she performs a hip-hop dance routine for an audience of mostly underage kids and their parents. She then calls her 12-year-old sister Supreme (Jazmyn C. Dorsey) up on stage, so Supreme can play the drums in a separate performance, which ends when Goldie and another girl dance on stage with Supreme. It looks like a carefree moment, but Goldie’s life at home isn’t so happy-go-lucky.
Goldie lives in a shelter, where she shares one room with her single mother, Carol played by (Marsha Stephanie Blake); Carol’s drug-dealing boyfriend Frank (played by Danny Hoch); and Goldie’s half-sisters Supreme and 8-year-old Sherrie (played by Alanna Renee Tyler-Tompkins). It all sounds like it’s going to be one of those typical “urban ghetto” stories that have been told too many times before.
However, writer/director Sam De Jong (who happens to be Dutch) infuses the movie with a lot of visual elements that work well by striking a balance between making the movie gritty yet occasionally whimsical. For example, in some of the scenes, a graffiti-like colorful palette surrounds the people in the movie, giving the impression that they are a living urban mural.
And when a new character is introduced, we hear the voice of Sherrie or Supreme saying the character’s name, as an artsy urban graphic appears showing the name on the screen. It’s because of these unique touches that “Goldie” doesn’t completely fall into a lot of the clichés about African Americans who are involved in “street life.”
The movie is also more than a coming-of-age story. It’s a chase movie with a twist: Instead of trying to escape from the police or criminals (which is the usual story in “urban” movies), the protagonist is trying to keep her family together by trying to escape from Child Protective Services.
Unfortunately, one negative stereotype that “Goldie” keeps perpetuating is the idea that young African Americans are always committing crimes. Goldie and most of the people in her social circle break the law on a regular basis, not necessarily for survival but just for the hell of it. And for most of the story, she’s in materialistic pursuit of getting enough money to buy a long canary-yellow faux-fur coat that she’s convinced will be her lucky charm if she can get to wear it in a music video.
The music video that she hopes will be her big break is for a local rapper named Tiny (played by real-life hop-hop star A$AP Ferg), who’s had some success on the charts, and he’s planning to film his next music video that weekend. Goldie meets with an acquaintance named Jay (played by Khris Davis), who has the connections to recommend Goldie to be a dancer in the video. Jay says that he’ll think about recommending her if she can film an audition video. If he likes what he sees, he says that he can pass it along to the right people.
Just when she’s planning on which outfit to buy for her audition, Goldie gets fired from her job at a discount clothing store because of chronic tardiness. She refuses to leave her boss’ office after she gets fired, so he calls security on her, and they literally have to throw her out.
When she passes by the store with the yellow coat in the display window, and she asks the owner to try on the coat. He says she can only try it on if she shows that she has the money to buy it. The store owner’s excuse is that because the coat is in the display window, he can’t let just anyone try it on.
Here’s where the negative stereotypes start for Goldie: She shoplifts a skimpy gold outfit that looks like a combination one-piece bathing suit and jumper, because she thinks she needs to dress like a video vixen to get noticed in the audition video. On the one hand, it’s realistic to show that young women are expected to dress this way in rap videos. On the other hand, it’s kind of disappointing that the movie made Goldie a thief to get a cheap-looking, sleazy outfit. With the help of Supreme, Goldie films her audition using her phone and wearing the outfit.
Meanwhile, back at home, Goldie gets upset with Frank because he’s doing drug deals out of their room while her younger sisters are nearby. She scolds Frank and her mother by saying that she doesn’t want Supreme and Sherrie to see any of the drug deals. Goldie’s conflict with Frank escalates when he says that $300 of his is missing, and he accuses Goldie of stealing the money. She denies it, and they end up in a physical fight with Goldie spraying Frank in the face with hot pink spray paint.
Things go from bad to worse for Goldie when her mother is arrested for reasons that are not stated in the movie. The police, who have a warrant, arrest Carol at the shelter. Goldie doesn’t stick around for Child Protective Services to show up, because she figures that Supreme and Sherrie will be separated. Goldie takes off with her sisters and then begins a desperate search for a place to hide until they can find out what will happen to their mother.
Before Goldie runs away from the shelter with the girls, she grabs a bunch of items, including her mother’s prescription pills (about 150), with the intent to sell the pills. Even in this dire situation, Goldie still has it in her head that she wants to be in Tiny’s music video that weekend, so her scheme to raise money isn’t just for food and shelter but so she can also buy that yellow coat.
This strange dichotomy shows how brash and illogical teenagers can be when they’re not fully mature enough to make responsible choices and think about long-term consequences. On the one hand, Goldie has a certain level of street smarts. On the other hand, Goldie is very naïve about how the music business works, because she doesn’t seem to know that being a dancer in a music video for a C-list rapper isn’t going to solve her money problems. There are minimum wage jobs that pay more than being what amounts to a glorified extra in a low-budget music video.
As she races from place to place, Goldie is looking for someone to buy her pills and give her somewhere to stay. The people she asks for help react in different ways.
One is a woman named Janet (played by Edwina Findley Dickerson), who’s close to Carol’s age and lives by herself in a house. Another is Goldie’s friend Elijah, nicknamed Eli (played by George Sample III), who doesn’t want to get too involved because he’s out on parole and doesn’t want to be arrested again.
She also turns to a drug dealer named Jose (played by Jose Fernandez),who is Goldie’s occasional lover, to see if he’ll buy the pills. And she also tries to sell the pills to her former co-worker enemy Princess (played by Angela Griszell), who has a long blonde wig that Goldie ends up stealing because she wants to wear it for the music video shoot.
And as a last resort, Goldie goes to her estranged biological father Richard, (played by Gbenga Akinnagbe), who works for the U.S. Postal Service and has started a new family with another woman.Because the movie’s cast is a mixture of professional actors and non-professional actors who live in the area where the movie was filmed, there’s an authenticity to these characters that probably wouldn’t be there if only experienced actors were in the cast.
On the surface, it might seem silly that Goldie is so focused on getting enough money for a coat, while her life is falling apart with bigger problems. But a closer look at how she’s acting shows that it’s really not about the coat, but what it symbolizes—her best shot at being discovered as a dancer so she can pursue her dream career that she hopes will be the path to a much better life. What she discovers at the end of the story is what kind of person she wants to be in order to pursue that dream.
Film Movement released “Goldie” in select U.S. cinemas and on VOD on February 21, 2020.
