The Right Connections

Phoned work sick - watched this in bed and it was so awful I would have went back to work if I could have gotten out of bed. The dog ran off with the remote so I was stuck.

I'm positive Hammer was grooming the eldest daughter to become his beeeatch.

Horrendous to watch - made me vomit more than what I was doing anyway. So there you have it - this would be the film that they play in the waiting room of Hell before you go in. Or maybe your stuck in the film for all eternity with the Hart kids. Just remember to take a gun with you....

I have mixed feelings about this film. At least is was a TV movie, because it was not good enough for the big screen. The plot was really thin and unrealistic although at times is seems to go the realistic way. The Hart family needs to study some more acting and get much better screenplays for their films or at least something that makes more sense than this.

But still it has some good points in their favor. First, they did not turn this movie into a resurrection of the Hammer man carrer (what a relief!). Next the children have some talent for dancing (although realistically not enough for winning a contest).Then Emily Hart, the cute little girl of the dancing group could turn out like her older sister Melisa Joan. Finally the always delightful presence of Melissa Joan keeps us begging for more of her.

I just finished watching The Right Connections, and I somewhat enjoyed it.

First of all, I approach movies on an individual basis. I do not care about who is in it or not in it. When it is over, I just ask myself one simple question: did it entertain me?

I think the biggest problems this movie had was both finding the right audience, and in Hammer himself.

The movie is almost a plot lifted from The Brady Bunch (which ironically the kids try to sing the theme song). 4 kids discover that their divorced mom has been laid off, so decides to go back to school. But they discover that their absentee father owes the IRS $5,000. Desperate to prevent their mom from leaving college, they try to find a way to earn the money themselves. When they hear of a "Hip-Hop Contest" with a prize of $5,000, they think they got it made.

They then con an ex-rap artist (Hammer) to train them. In an almost biographical role, Hammer is down on his luck, ignored by his former fans, and is on the verge of losing everything he owns.

Can he take this group of middle-class white kids and make them a Hip-Hop group? No, not really. But he does do his best, and teaches both himself and the kids something in the process.

One of the things I enjoyed most in this movie is both the almost biographical nature of Hammer's career. Him and his producer try to convince a record executive that he still has fans, and the executive is white. But to him, the only thing that matters is money. And while the kids do have little talent, they do try.

Also I enjoyed the clean nature of the story. One of the reasons that Hammer's career failed so fast is that his "fans" suddenly realized that all of his songs were about God. And while the message in this movie is not so heavy-handed, it is centered around family.

Overall, I left this movie with a fairly good feeling, and with several laughs. The sequence where the mother walks in seeing this strange black man in a leather jacket "attacking" her youngest daughter (he was tickeling her) was fairly strong, and handled in a fairly mature manner. Both the mother tries to apologize for her wrong asumption, and Hammer tries to make her feel comfortable, understanding her fear, and why she might have had it.

I rated this movie a 7. Not for the acting, nor the worn story, but simply because I enjoyed it, and it made me feel good at the end. After all, that is why we watch movies, right?

At the end, there was an obvious opening for a sequal, which was obviously never made. I have to admit I am glad for that. If they ever made a sequal of this movie, it would probably be so contrived and silly, I could not enjoy it.

Let's don't get crazy. There is nothing redeeming about this silly movie. At first I was wondering what the heck Melissa Joan Hart (who is in a supporting role) is doing in such an awful movie. Then I realized the "stars" were her less talented siblings. This movie is just a chance for Melissa Joan Hart's Hollywood mother to take advantage of Melissa's stardom and to showcase the rest of her brood (can anyone say "Macaulay Culkin"?).

The plot is stolen right from a Brady Bunch episode. The acting is on the level of public access television. Imagine watching the home movies of some stranger's children at their school play. The only person who could enjoy this movie would be named Hart or an MC Hammer fanatic.

Those who say that this movie is bad obviously prefer such movies as Fightclub or I don't know....Rollerball. This movie I agree is not a blockbuster big screen smash but it IS a good movie. It has a good storyline of a mothers children trying to help their mother out by winning a hip-hop contest to get 5,000 dollars so she can stay in school. The acting WAS good much to others critique, and all I can say to them is.....let's see you do better! All in all I say if you see it showing on Showtime or any of the such...give it a try...you'll be surprised