Poorly executed attempts at near-slapstick mix with clumsy, blunt moments of social messaging to produce a film not funny enough to be a comedy and not convincing enough to be a drama.
Shameik Moore plays Malcolm, a bright and likeable Gen Z kid who, along with his two nerdy pals, Jib (Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons), is a young man unstuck from his times. Hounded by bullies and sporting a haircut that Kid n’ Play would smile at, Malcolm’s music of choice is the rap and hip-hop of the 90s.
The plot snaps into action when Malcolm goes to a party thrown by a local drug dealer named Dom (ASAP Rocky). As the guests party it up on the dance floor, Dom and a few friends see a drug deal go bad, in one of the backrooms, when a rival gang bursts through the doors with guns a-blazing. Malcolm and his friends manage to escape without a scratch.
Next day, though, Malcolm finds dope and a handgun in his backpack. Worse yet, he has fallen for drug dealer Dom’s gorgeous sort-of-kind-of-girlfriend, Nakia (Zoe Kravitz).
Somewhere in here there is a sweet, edgy little coming of age film about a good kid from the hood who learns that minding his own business is a losing strategy when others are so intent on smashing his windows and kicking down his door. Hounded and intimidated by school bullies, drug dealers, Malcolm finally pushes back and, in doing so, finds his way in the world.
The problem is that that should’ve been-could’ve been sweet and edgy little film is impossible to find. Buried under scene after scene of sloppy, barely sketched in comic schtick, Dope soon becomes a film at war with itself. It wants to be serious. It wants to say something about identity and how it is often deceiving and unfairly applied by those with all the power. Fair enough – that much is clear throughout the film. But, Dope is not content to simply embed the obvious statement in the plot. No, after a string of lame comic set pieces and needlessly drawn out dialogue scenes, Dope then makes Malcolm turn to the camera and give a long, super-serious speech about the unfairness of it all – he even has a mic!
There is one nice little touch in Dope, though. Malcolm uses his straight-A high school rep to engage in illegal activities in order to undermine the unfair rep schools like Harvard give to kids that come from neighbourhoods like his – good grades or not.
Overall, though, Dope is clumsy, bloated and not even close to convincing.
