It’s been a month since I saw Chris Robinson’s ATL, almost two since I caught Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Like any film on the Sundance slate that actually makes it to a theater near you, Half Nelson came bundled with critical praise. At SFIFF, the film played on two screens simultaneously, both packed. In introducing Mr. Fleck and his film, a fest programmer noted Half Nelson as signaling a return to the last golden age of American Independent Cinema, mentioning by name the early works of Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch and John Sayles.

She’s Gotta Have It, Stranger Than Paradise…Half Nelson?



In Mr. Fleck’s film Ryan Gosling plays DAN, a middle school history teacher tempering a crack addiction (amongst binge drinking and the occasional pill-popping). After a blowout loss to a rival school (he coaches the girls basketball team, of course), Dan takes a hit of the pipe in the team's locker-room and is caught by DREY, his most pensive pupil (an absolutely knockout first-time performance from Shareeka Epps).

The girl feigns indifference; bums a ride home from teach and barely mentions the incident. As the weeks go on, the two spend more time together with Dan deducing a close friend of hers, FRANK, is one of his main suppliers. Once Dan decides Frank – a dealer for whom Drey’s brother took the fall and is serving time – seeks to pull her into dealing, he seeks to save her despite destroying himself.

Sounds noble, even uplifting, yes? Well, that’s pretty much where the story ends on Half Nelson, a film obviously lauded on intent and premise, not so much execution. First, the school at which Dan teaches is presented as a hard knock life, all minority faces and hip hop attitude, yet there aren’t more than fifteen kids in his class. There are no class clowns and everyone surrenders their attention without hesitation. At a public school? In the inner-city? Please.

Secondly, Drey is the smartest person in this film—child, adult, or otherwise. Mr. Fleck even posits her in the care of a single, yet hardworking and supportive mother. Drey is bright, funny, and from appearances not really economically impoverished. To put it simply, she has a wealth of choices. Yet, when Frank comes along offering the chance to deal, Drey accepts despite everything in her demeanor being to the contrary. It’s as though Mr. Fleck is implying there’s a drug-dealing gene coursing through Drey and rendering her powerless to temptation. How’s that for social commentary?

Third, throughout the film Mr. Fleck cuts away to direct address monologues by the students, moments where the kids state interesting historical incidents intercut with stills from the National Library of Congress. These moments have, without question, nothing to do with Dan or his classroom. Dan’s teaching method is anecdotal, relying on interpersonal connections above the recitation of history so the device makes little sense in light of the students learning. And even then, as the film tracks Dan’s addiction his handle on said method slips mightily. If Mr. Fleck had any handle on “his” method, the children’s direct addresses would falter with Dan’s teaching. But then, as I stated above, the two have nothing to do with each other, the addresses serving merely as a knee-jerk device to illustrate how cute and intelligent these inner-city kids “really” are, never mind investigating their real situation–-their teacher is a fuckin’ CRACKHEAD, remember?

And while those elements are bad enough, the climax is the kicker: after attempting to date rape his colleague and sometime girlfriend, Dan attends a family dinner where his parents worry over his condition and he comes-on to his brother’s fiancée. A moment of introspection ensues, then Broken Social Scene’s Shampoo Suicide cues over the soundtrack. Have you heard this song? Fuckin’ great song, a sexy mix of yearning and mania. Mr. Fleck scores it to his climax, a tripped out orgy of crack and prostitutes as Dan and a gang of folks we’ve never seen get down in a seedy motel room. Just as the song peaks there’s a knock at the door, one of the hookers opening it to reveal Drey delivering a fresh re-up of crack. She and Dan meet eyes of course, shamed to the core as Shampoo Suicide overbears the moment.

There’s only five minutes of film beyond this scene. As dénouement, Drey knocks on Dan’s door the following morning, enters his apartment. The place is a mess, Dan nursing a nasty hangover. The pair takes a seat on the couch, framed in a comical wide as two punch-drunk friends the morning after. In a previous scene Drey gave Dan pointers on picking up women, humor as glimpsed through a knock-knock joke. Dan attempts one here, the two laugh and the film ends.

What the fuck?

If Mr. Fleck wants to make a messy film that topically deals with social issues, that’s fine. My beef isn’t at all with him, but rather the response to his film: when did shit like this become an apt substitute for intelligent portrayals of social truths? And has the cinematic dollar been inflated so much that today’s Half Nelson equals yesterday’s She’s Gotta Have It or Stranger Than Paradise?

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To be blunt, ATL is the first “urban” film in quite a while that stands up to its mainstream (cough: Caucasian) brethren, a piece of hood entertainment critics can take seriously. Featuring rapper Tip “T.I.” Harris as RASHAD, the eldest son to deceased parents in the roughs of Atlanta, the flick manages to hit all the requisite notes—hood, coming of age, hip hop—while remaining polished with solid performances and production values.

It goes like this: Rashad and his brother ANT are orphaned sons left to their uncle’s custody. Being a man wise beyond his years, the high school senior Rashad actually plays caretaker to his silly Uncle George (1), saving money by the fistful to send his knucklehead brother to college (2). As backdrop, the teens wile away weekends at a local skate joint, the point of which is to have the best skate clique and win the rink’s annual competition. Problems arise when Ant, sick of being a “broke nobody,” turns to dealing for dope man MARCUS (Outkast's Big Boi in great form) while Rashad falls for a ghetto fabulous rink bunny named NEW NEW. New New is hot as all get out and about as hip hop as hip hop chicks come. Everything’s fly between her and Rashad until ESQUIRE–-Rashad’s best friend typed as that smart dude from the hood who buses into the fancy private school—bumps into New New while schmoozing her extremely upper crust father.

Rashad flips out on both New New–-“You lied to me!”—and Esquire—“You knew and didn’t tell me?”—and everything goes to shit. Meanwhile Ant gets arrested by cops and robbed by rival dope boys, losing enough of Marcus' money that a hit is put out on him. In the film’s climactic scene, Tip wrestles Marcus for a gun as Ant ducks for cover. As must happen in a film of this genre, the weapon discharges and one of the brothers is shot. Then, in keeping with Half Nelson’s featherweight dénouement, Rashad wraps up the film with a five-minute voice over (4) summing how everyone went on to live happily ever after.

First time feature director Chris Robinson does a fine job structuring the action. He only faulters here when the melodrama subdues music his video flash: a row between the brothers dissolves to maudlin sap, strings cueing over the score as Mr. Robinson follows neither the sound, nor image of the brothers tussle, but rather cuts to the stained portraits of their deceased parents nearby.

The beauty of ATL rests in its inception: written, produced, starring and directed by regional African-Americans with the backing of Hollywood money, the film represents a freedom of execution regards subject matter and presentation rare in mainstream entertainment. Class conflicts within the race, the adoption of hip hop mannerisms by silver spooned black teens, boys raising men; all are topics seldom broached in mainstream media, yet here we find them under one umbrella in ATL.

Of course, such topics must be handled better. There are numbers above:

1. Mykelti Williamson plays the sorriest character in his noble career here. Rashad’s Uncle George is a lazy, ignorant, nearly mentally handicapped man with low morals: When Ant gets arrested and Rashad goes berserk, Uncle George pulls him aside and says, “Don’t be so hard on him…truth is, we could really use the extra money.”

Similarly awful is the always solid Keith David as New New’s father, MR. GARNETT, an extremely wealthy elder buppie who golfs, sails, plays tennis, etc.. When Esquire decides to come clean and admit to Garnett that he’s indeed a member of the private school but lives in the hood, the man scoffs at him and pettily retracts a letter of recommendation he’d written the kid, despite Garnett himself having come from the hood.

These are the only black males in the film above age thirty and they both SUCK! Sure, both are reprieved in the epilogue but that’s a napkin over spilt blood: Just because ATL hails from a hip hop (read: youth consumerist) point of view, doesn’t necessitate the bastardization of anyone outside that realm.

2. The most charismatic, engaging and well-rounded human being in the film is T.I.’s Rashad. While saving his hard earned money in a coffee jar to rescue his knucklehead brother from the hood is noble, it belies a crucial aspect of Rashad’s character no one ever mentions: What the fuck about him? Seemingly—we get no evidence to the contrary–-Rashad has no plans to attend college or vocational school or anything beyond his current station. Instead, he completely disregards himself in favor of his listless brother. While there is little negative in altruism, the question must be asked: Did no one question this during the script process? Or was it deemed unrealistic that a black teen from the hood could aide his brother without neglecting himself?

3. That New New is filthy rich, yet plays in the hood is presented as the greatest offense to human kind. The girl is putting on clothes, nails, and a hairdo and doing nothing more than hanging out. What’s the harm in that? Every character in the film feels similarly affronted—usually an indicator such reactions rise from the authors and not the characters—and the offense never runs deeper than the topical. In a more thorough handling, Rashad and his buddies’ reactions would implicate them as well as she: If New New must be outcast for frontin', why not Esquire for prepping up to woo her father? And if the characters are to be affronted at all, are they implicitly supporting the stereotypes of their environments…the very stereotypes we often associate with our youth’s misappropriation of negative imagery. These questions are complicated and thus the point shouldn’t be to answer them. Were ATL truly free of the Hollywood system it would’ve found the means to raise them better and not have settled for the trite judgment it passes on New New.

4. A coming-of-age machine that rockets through too many subplots, ATL's last resort is to tie up its frayed ends with Rashad’s epilogue. Spoken with the hard earned wisdom of the film’s hundred minute running time, T.I. does a serviceable job of relating how everyone gets along in the aftermath. Esquire gets his letter of recommendation, Uncle George finds meaning in a newfound girlfriend, New New stops dressing ghetto and goes to Spellman, etc.. The whole thing reeks of smugness, a device that lets on how ultimately little faith the powers that be have in today’s moviegoer. Despite solid performances, regional flare and at the very least an attempt at getting to real issues, the film succumbs to a lack narrative follow through. You know that saying about the gun in act one needing to go off by act three? Well, once said gun goes off the only thing remaining is Rashad’s pat voice over…and the association this makes is sickening: At the end of this journey, the clearest association the film imparts is that the clap of gunfire is the only means to resolution. Like a kiss to Snow White’s lips, Marcus’ glock brings love to Uncle Ernie, scholarship to Esquire and love to Rashad.

Pay attention. This is what happens when narrative and aesthetics are mishandled and intentions are subbed for substance.