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Slam
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Slam (1998) -- Open-ended Trailer from Trimark

Overview

User Rating:
7.1/10   1,285 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 7% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Marc Levin
Writers:
Marc Levin (story) &
Richard Stratton (story) ...
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Contact:
View company contact information for Slam on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
7 October 1998 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama more
Tagline:
Words make sense of a world that won't. more
Plot:
Slam tells the story of Ray Joshua, an original, gifted young MC trapped in a war-zone housing project known as Dodge City... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
3 wins & 3 nominations more
User Comments:
2/3 of a really good character study, results may vary more

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Saul Williams ... Ray Joshua
Sonja Sohn ... Lauren Bell
Bonz Malone ... Hopha
Lawrence Wilson ... Big Mike
Beau Sia ... Jimmy Huang
Andre Taylor ... China
Momolu Stewart ... Bay (Jail Rapper)
Ron Jones ... Do Wop Cop
Reamer Shedrick ... Do Wop Cop
Allan E. Lucas ... Chief C.O.
Dominic Chianese Jr. ... Officer Dom
Jerome Goldman ... Jail Class Poet 'Why'
DJ Renegade ... Party Poet 'Diminuendo in Blue'
Liza Jessie Peterson ... Slam Poet 'Ice Cream'
Taylor Mali ... Slam Poet 'Like'
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Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

MPAA:
Rated R for pervasive language, a sex scene and brief violence.
Runtime:
100 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital
Certification:
USA:R (certificate #35994) | Iceland:12 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | France:U | Norway:11 | South Korea:12 (video rating) (cut) | South Korea:15 (director's cut) | Spain:13 | UK:15

Fun Stuff

Quotes:
Ray Joshua: I am before, I am before before. Before death is eternity, after death is eternity, there is no death - there is only eternity. more
Soundtrack:
Hologrammic Dub more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful:-
2/3 of a really good character study, results may vary, 14 June 2004
Author: JackGattanella from United States

In Marc Levin's Slam, perhaps the greatest asset he and cinematographer Mark Benjamin bring is the documentary-style to this urban-based drama. For the first few minutes of the film, I thought this would be a documentary. In a sense, when I realized when it wasn't it was a letdown, because even though this is a close-to-life depiction story of a kid in the ghettos of Washington DC, somehow if it really was a documentary it might've been even more compelling. As it is, Slam is a very naturalistic first-person drama, and the film deals with a protagonist that isn't hard to identify with, even when things seem a little over-done or even when it's a little naïve.

Basic story in two sentences – Raymond Joshua (Saul Williams, also one of the film's co-writers) is set up to go to prison for pot, and while in prison he meets a few people that recognize his skills as a writer and poet.

When he gets out he wants to hold on to the freedom he knows he can attain, but he doesn't know how. With this conflict, Raymond is a character that is recognizable and identifiable with the audience. And with this, Williams creates a constantly believable performance even when his character may not sound entirely believable or realistic.

Although the performances are a plus for the film's success, such as Bonz Malone as Hopha, and Sonja Sohn as the writing teacher/poet Lauren, for me the style over-passed the substance. Though the poetry was inspired and the poets in the film who spoke them were very good, some of the story elements were not as effective as they could've been. For example, there's a blind-men analogy when Raymond gets out of jail and sees that his pot-dealer friend, who got shot, is now blind. Raymond is morally in the right in their final scene together, but it's a little too thick of a message for my taste when Raymond says, 'I once was blind too, now I can see.' Williams' poetry (which I assume he wrote himself) is interesting, although it's his delivery that catches my ear over the content. In a pivotal scene his poetry saves him from a beating in the prison yard, yet somehow it doesn't feel as real as some of the other scenes, like with him and Malone's character.

As I said, the style was what held the film, especially for such a low budget. I loved the use of the hand-held, shaky mis-en-scene, as though someone was allowed to peek into the atmosphere of DC. And from a psychological standpoint, Levin seems to extract what the essence is of Raymond and his neighborhood. Through his usage grainy color and then to a 8mm camcorder for flashbacks from Raymond, I felt the emotional impact that Levin was going for, the mix of disorientation and of being in a free-fallin' kind of society where you don't know what can happen next. I just wished that I saw more of that with the characters and the story. Cool ending though. B

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This is a great movie.. yankeepinstripes2005
'Wire' connections hq-3
Anyone catch this goof? smkdownddt
Lyrics to love poem?? carmencapel69
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an under rated movie! unlikely_protagonist
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