Guilty by Association

This makes you wonder if someone "stole" Morgan Freeman. I suspect he was abducted and used without his permission! His work is always so much better than this. The movie was poorly written. It was poorly made, and poorly directed. This movie contains almost no real footage with Morgan Freeman in it. No one should rent or buy this movie based on his "presence" in the film. As an avid supporter of Morgan Freeman, I honestly believe that there is something afoot here. It's as if it was sold to him as one project and then post-production became something totally different. I wonder why he didn't fight this. It's pure crap.

Guilty by Association is a case study in misrepresentation. The trailer that was included in the DVD extras gives the impression that the movie will be an taut urban action thriller with Morgan Freeman chasing down a child killer. Instead, we get a preachy second rate faux-docudrama about a drug partnership gone bad.

The trailer was far superior to the movie. The trailer has tension, action, and pacing. Perhaps the trailer editor is the one who should have made Guilty by Association. The movie is at times laughably amateurish and often downright insulting to the viewer's intelligence.

The stupidest scene (among others) is where a cop calls the murdered child's mother to tell her that her kid has been murdered. Excuse me? Anyone with enough brains to hit the "off" button on the remote knows that this is a sensitive situation that would be handled in person by the cop.

All that can be concluded from this poor effort is that Morgan Freeman must have owed someone a BIG favor. That's the only explanation for his being Guilty by Association with this movie.

We rented this movie for one reason: Morgan Freeman. Unfortunately, Morgan Freeman's largest part in this movie is on the DVD box. I like Morgan Freeman, but this whole movie, and especially his supposed part in it, is a fraud. I HATE gang-banger gibberish and subliterate street jargon, and that's all this movie is. Whatever hidden cautionary tale this movie is supposed to convey is buried under cubic yards of blithering idiocy. If you want to see what is in this movie without paying for it, just go over to the bad side of what ever city you live in and you'll see plenty of it. Whatever you do, don't waste your time or money on this movie if you are wanting to see Morgan Freeman--he just isn't there. Rating: a big goose egg -- 0. There's not one redeeming quality to this movie, not even the big name "associated" with it.

Wow. When I rented this movie, I knew that it might be bad, but I never expected a train wreck like this. It's not so much that the script was boring, but the way the movie was executed was somewhat bizarre. People's behavior (the police's in particular) just didn't make much sense. I expected a certain level of quality given that the movie included Morgan Freeman, but I was unpleasantly surprised. His character wasn't particularly interesting or important. I have a suspicion that in the original script, Lieutenant Redding was a very minor character, but when they landed Morgan Freeman the Lieutenant was given more face time, though no more relevance. If you watch the trailer, it appears that the movie is centered on him. As it turns out, the plot and outcome of the movie would be the same if his character had never existed.

Ok, let me first get the pleasantries out of the way. Wait, I can't think of any pleasantries for this steaming pile of monkey crap. This is seriously one of the worst movies I have ever seen. If you rent or buy this movie thinking it's going to star Morgan Freeman, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Freeman appears in a total of three scenes with possibly 10 lines max. The film itself is more or less yet ANOTHER black urban "street" movie along the lines of classics like Boyz N da Hood and Menace II Society, however it's not even the same league as those movies. Hell, it's not even in the same sport. And if it's playing any sport, it's gotta be bowling. You've probably seen several movies like this sitting on your shelf at your local Blockbuster, but the difference between this one and those is that this one somehow has a major superstar of an actor in it(albiet only for 5 minutes or so...). But don't let that fool you into thinking this movie is even remotely decent, let alone good. It is some of the cheapest and most amateur crap I have ever laid my eyes upon. It honestly looks like it was made for about 10 bucks. The video quality is so amateur and hookey that at one point I actually spotted strange wiggly lines going down the middle of the frame. I mean, even the Blairwitch Project looked more professional and quality made than this. The acting is pretty much putrid from every actor involved. I didn't know what was really going on plot wise as the film was horribly edited and went all over the place(nor did i care anyway...), but I think it was basically about two young black men who start dealing drugs and ruin their lives in the process. Yep, real 'original' eh? I don't know the circumstances surrounding Morgan Freeman being involved in this, but the only thing I can assume is the director was given a substantially large chunk of chain by the studio and he basically spent it all paying Freeman to appear in a couple scenes. The best thing is whenever Morgan Freeman appears on the screen the director cues some big symphonic music and starts trying out really dramatic camera angles to try and trick you into thinking that you're suddenly watching a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster, but the film reaks of so much suckiness that it doesn't even come close to being effective and you just end up laughing at the patheticness of it. I should also note that I did not and would not ever pay money to see this waste of celluoid. I work at a Blockbuster Video and thus get all my rentals free. I saw it in the employee rentals stack and thought to myself "Hmm, Morgan Freeman is a fine actor; I'll give this a shot." despite the fact that the movie had been sitting on the shelf since 2001(REALLY BAD SIGN) and it was a direct-to-DVD release. Boy, what a mistake that was. I should have known better. I think the only reason I even made it through this entire piece of crap is because it only ran 80 minutes. Also, please don't let the fact that a big picture of Morgan Freeman's face is plastered on the cover box to trick you into thinking he has a big role in this. It's false advertisement to utmost extreme! They even stick his face all over the main menu of the disc. I guess in one last ditch effort to try to convince you're about to watch a great urban street drama "starring" one of Hollywood's finest actors. I can only possibly recommend this film to people who like viewing cinematic engimas. That enigma of course being how a legitimate Hollywood heavyweight like Morgan Freeman ended up in this god forsaken pathetic excuse for a film. AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS! I PROMISE you will regret wasting 80 minutes of your life on this. It's that bad. The Shawshank Redemption this is not. Morgan Freeman should be ashamed of himself.