User reviews

I'm not a fan of ghetto films . It seems wrong to profit from the misery of crime ridden , socio-economic deprived urban hell that many people have to endure by making a film on the topic . Let's be cynical if not honest and say these type of films are about the makers putting themselves in the shop window , getting money and acclaim about a serious subject and marketing the film for people who don't live in the ghetto . On top of that the formula is always the same of bright young kid having to choose between joining the nihilistic pack or following their dreams and the film is always peppered with variations of the F and N words . STREETS didn't hold much promise and as the opening credits started I logged on to this page to see the young cast held very low experienced resumes so I was expecting amateur hour . As the film continued I did actually find myself pleasantly surprised and despite being nowhere near Oscar was not nearly as bad as I was expecting

Now let's continue in an honest vein and say STREETS never breaks out of its formulaic bondage . It contains all the plot devices who claim to be characters . The aims and motives of these plot devices are the same as you'd see in any ghetto movie but what is does it does comparatively well . Much of this is simply down to the aforementioned young cast who bring the ring of truth to their roles , especially Nafessa Williams as the middle class Nicole Williams who manages to bring a likability to her role . I'm taking most the cast are from the mean streets of Philadelphia ? Being unknown this helps and I never thought for a moment I was watching a bunch of actors playing roles . Director Jamal Hill obviously has a very small budget to play with and STREETS does have a student film look about but if nothing else he does get the best out of his cast . He does over do things where track is involved by having mood muzak play over scenes as in "this is a sad scene so lets play sad music and this is a scene of menace lets play some menacing music and this ... " which is a pity because it takes away from the realist approach the director might have originally been looking for

While the limited budget shows, and some lines are delivered very amateurishly, overall this film was well executed and the acting was better than you see in a lot of independent films. The writing was incredible and true, the dialogue believable and did not seem out of place to the setting. Locations were well-thought-out, and casting was well-done. The practical and special effects of the scenes were very realistic. The story carried me with it, the characters made me care about their stories, and the surprises took me by surprise. Well done.

Personally, I could have done without a lot of the swearing and excessive use of racial slurs, but that is true to the setting. It would be like telling you a holocaust film contained too much anti-semitism for my taste. I admire the writer(s)/director for keeping that language in the film, though sometimes hard to hear. Often the truth is. I would advise viewers to be aware that there is a significant amount of violence and foul language in the film. Sex is suggested, but not shown graphically.

This movie was awesome. Hands down. Whoever did the writing was really on point. Very very good performance by Meek Mill.