Sucker Free City (2004) (TV)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Spike Lee

Writer:

Alex Tse (writer)

Release Date:

21 February 2009 (Sweden)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

On these streets, everybody's got a gang.

Plot:

Sucker-Free City, or S.F.C., revolves around the conflicts among white, black, Latino and Asian street gangs in San Francisco.

Plot Keywords:

Ghetto

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Ben Crowley	...	Nick Wade
Ken Leung	...	Lincoln Ma
Anthony Mackie	...	K-Luv
Darris Love	...	Sleepy
Laura Allen	...	Samantha Wade
T.V. Carpio	...	Angela Tsing
Kathy Baker	...	Cleo Wade
James Hong	...	Kwok
Lamont Bentley	...	Ahmir
Ewan Chung	...	Edwin Leong
Omari Hardwick	...	Dante Ponce
Marguerite Moreau	...	Jessica Epstein
Judy Pace	...	Mama June
Eyal Podell	...	Stephan Cashen
Stanford Chase	...	Peter Wu (as Stanford Poon)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, pervasive language, drug content and some sexual material.

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Cantonese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:MA | USA:R | UK:15 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A

Company:

40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks

Movie Connections:

Features To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Why watch an unfinished movie?

I went into this movie assuming it was going to be a series.

You know the "pilot" feeling? We get to meet and know something about the main characters, how they got to where they are now, and have some ideas about what's going to unfold during the first season of the show.

It was good, almost very good. But I also knew they were holding back some stuff because it was going to be a series. If it was a movie, I would have felt differently because then I would have thought: "Hey, I see where you are going, why hold back?"

So, while I definitely felt a bit cheated by the ending, I was already cutting it some slack, because it was setting up nicely for an interesting series. I was anticipating some of the topics that were going to be brought up during the show. Lots of potential.

In fact, when I watched it, I was assuming that the next episode was going to appear the following week, and started messing with my TiVo to get a Season Pass set up.

But it wasn't available yet. So I decided to wait a few months for the pilot to get picked up, which never happened. After a while, I forgot about it.

It's not until today, when I saw the listing here, that I remembered how I felt about the show.

Frankly, my opinion now is: Don't watch it! Why put yourself through a couple hours of "pretty good" entertainment, with plenty of intentional plot holes and missed opportunities?

It's a true shame they never followed up on this.