By Katie Linton
Dope, is a 2015 movie that grossed $6.1 million on opening weekend in the box office, and was just recently released on Netflix. It follows high school senior, Malcolm as he navigates life in a rough neighborhood; Inglewood, California a.k.a. “The Bottoms.” A run-in with a drug dealer, played by the notorious A$AP Rocky making his debut in the film industry, leads Malcolm and his buddies, Diggy and Jib, on quite the adventure.
First off, one of my favorite things about Dope was the soundtrack. It was one of those movies that you just have to take note of the impeccable choices the directors have made with the music backing the storyline of the film. So honestly, for all the music lovers and appreciators out there, I’d recommend this movie for the soundtrack in itself.
Although the music really stood out to me, I was pretty impressed with the film as a whole. I was wary going into it because all the hype I’d heard was just about A$AP Rocky and Tyga’s cameo appearance. I don’t know about you, but I’m skeptical about musicians and actors switching industries, simply because I personally feel like even if a person is a good actor, that doesn’t automatically make them a good singer and vice versa. But neither of the rappers appearing in this film were half bad.
Another thing I liked about Dope was one, the narration and two, the nineties theme. Malcolm, the main character, was all about the nineties; Fresh Prince, retro vinyl’s, and of course hip hop, as Malcolm said the nineties were “the golden age of hip hop.” The narrator, voiced by Amin Joseph, made the film seem even more retro and nineties, not to mention the main character’s wardrobes, which I loved.
Finally, I loved this movie for the ending. The ending says a lot about a movie. I mean, the first thing it says is that the movie was good enough to sit through and actually make it to the ending. And yes that works for the movie Dope, I watched it through until the end and I loved how it wrapped up the deeper controversial issues apparent in the film throughout. I hadn’t even really thought about everything going on in the film until the end.
In the end it was about Malcolm finding himself. Realizing he was more than what the neighborhood he grew up in defined him to be. Yeah, he fell into some sticky situations, but that didn’t erase the straight A, Harvard bound student he was.
The movie ended with Malcolm telling it how it is and of course closed out with a great music choice.
I’d like to give a final fair warning, this movie has a lot of profanity in it, and so if you’re not cool with that, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this movie to you.
A quick spoiler (don’t worry, not really a spoiler just exciting news) to you all Workaholic fans out there…Blake Henderson has a prime role in this movie.
