Netflix pick for 4/18/16 – ‘Dope’

As heard in episode 171 of Cinema Crespodiso.

“Dope” is a very cool movie from 2015 about a trio of friends living in Los Angeles, and this trio find themselves as outcasts in their own neighborhoods and school because they refuse to conform to any sort of stereotype. They love music, they are geeks about the 1990s and modern technology, the main character’s biggest goal is to get in to Harvard, which makes him appear to be a weirdo to his peers, and it all comes across as a solid and modern updating of the classic John Hughes movies of the 1980s.

From my original review of “Dope” from last year:

This is almost like a 1980’s John Hughes movie set in the ‘hood, as our openly geeky main character deals with his sense of identity while navigating that weird time frame between childhood and adulthood, and he meets a girl that seems to be out of his league but still sees something in him anyway. He gets together with his friends and they wish they were more popular and were able to go to more parties, and his geeky tendencies, academic prowess and quiet demeanor sets him apart from all the rough and tumble alpha males in his school (instead of asshole jocks he has to contend with gang members). If this movie was made in the 80’s and set in a suburban high school somewhere in Indiana, it would have starred Anthony Michael Hall.

But instead of 80’s suburbia, this is a modern inner city neighborhood, and that brings with it all sorts of baggage for Malcolm. Interestingly enough, at the start of the movie Malcolm (in voiceover form) goes over the things that black kids aren’t “supposed” to be in to, like going to college and speaking properly, because these are deemed to be “white people things,” which is sad when furthering education and simple grammar skills shouldn’t be restricted to any one race or culture, but as this movie points out, this is indeed the case. It would have been nice if “Dope” had gone further down this particular rabbit hole but instead it is just used as shorthand in the beginning to show how Malcolm and his friends are different from the rest. And in case you don’t pick up on this, there is a scene later in the movie in which Malcolm expressly states that he is different from everyone else, and this statement from him is called into question even later in the movie, and finally the film ends with Malcolm openly asking the audience watching this movie if he really is different from the rest, which becomes the whole point of this movie, how an environment shapes a person and how they react to this environment and what they do within it can determine the rest of their life whether they want it to or not.

“Dope” is a really good movie, not perfect but still very entertaining, effective and above all, thoughtful. You can see for yourself by watching “Dope” here on the Netflix Instant and learn you something about bitcoins while you are at it.