Caught Up

A poorly written urban crime drama that would have worked better as a sketch in HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE, CAUGHT UP stars Bokeem Woodbine as an ex-con trying to go straight. Shortly after his release from prison, he meets Trish (Cynda Williams, whose mediocre performance is in sharp contrast to her impressive work in ONE FALSE MOVE), who's, of all things, a psychic being pursued by an evil Rastafarian from whom she stole a huge diamond. Instead of staying the hell away from this apparently high-maintenance love interest (she's beautiful, you see) and trying to reconnect with his former squeeze, he agrees to help her. Every stereotype and cliché is used, as well as howlingly bad dialogue ("Nobody was waiting for me but a dude named destiny") and the perfunctory hip-hop cameos. This film seems to have been made solely to promote its accompanying soundtrack, but with hardly any rap music included in the movie, what exactly was the point of all this?