Superfly

"Superfly" is simultaneosly an overly glossy piece of exploitation cinema and a film with a few surprises in it. A remake of the disreputable 70s blacksploitation film which gave a heroic heroin dealer a chance to escape the consequences to a cool Curtis Mayfield soundtrack, this one relocates the action to modern Atlanta and doesn't try at all to soften the material. It definately shows off the high-living and sexy lifestyle of top-end drug dealing in a way that is disticntly uncomfortable, but it's worth sticking with both for some surprising moments of bitter reality showing up about midway and also some fairly frenetic action. Some of the glossier montages early on do get somewhat tedious (it's the same-old-hip-hop glorification of money and exploitation of women), and lead actor Trevor Jackson has a little too much of that too-cool-to-be-interesting thing going on where there's not a lot beneath the teflon surface, but this isn't entirely content to just offer shallow pleasures.

I don't know that I can entirely defend this  - it's definately an amoral film, and is very easy to take as style over substance. But I think there's a little more substance than is at first apparent - events midway through the plot give a lot more gravitas than is at first expected (while still offering some exploitation delights near the end - one baddies fate in particular is delightful). If you're allergic to hip-hop-self-glorificaiton this may prove not your thing, but if you're willing to go with it there's more than you might expect.