August (Columbus Short) is a no accent Nigerian immigrant who aspires to be a night club DJ in New York. Me meets a lot of unsavory characters and provides us with background narration throughout the film. Signe (Alicja Bachleda) a Swedish immigrant who loses her accent half way through the film, has just witnessed a murder and has the film of the incident on her cell phone. August was the last number in her cell to call. The man who was murdered was Jesus (Kareem Savinon) a drug dealer on the Lower East Side. A rich kid Nicolas (Jesse Spencer) is seen taking his life with a pillow. Meanwhile Angel (Wilmer Valderrama) Jesus' brother is playing detective to find his missing brother. With bills overdue and blackmail material in hand...

The plot becomes twisty which was the main selling point of the film. There appeared to be attempts at dark comedy, i.e. when August consults his horoscope for guidance, but overall it was simply a crime drama/ thriller with emphasis on drama.

Guide: F-bomb, sex, near nudity.

The other night I caught up with "Cadillac Records". I was impressed with Columbus Short, a new name to me, and I decided to look out for his subsequent movies. After watching this mess I will stop looking.

Alicja Bachleda made her movie debut at 16 in a masterpiece. Sad she has sunk to this.

Mike Starr, who has appeared in an enormous number of movies as a heavy, either played straight or for humor, does his usual reliable job here.

I love Film Noir, and there is a good story hiding somewhere within all the confusion. Mr Onah should have handed over the direction to someone with a clue. They are not shy about promoting Spike Lee's name as one of the 17 (!) producers, executive producers and assistant producers. You would think that Lee or one of his colleagues would have had the common-sense to steer the director away from some of his more egregious errors, such as:

--- The incessant narration, on topics related and unrelated to the story in progress.

--- Awful camera-work, replete with shakes and glare.

--- The pointless flashbacks (a common feature of such low-budget would-be neo-noirs).

--- The horrible soundtrack, which made it almost impossible to follow the plot. So often these days the music (if that is what it is meant to be) drowns out the dialogue, made worse when, as here, many of the cast seem to suffer speech impediments.

I was discussing with a friend only today why so many Brit actors are now popping up in US movies, even in supporting roles as "All-American" characters. My friend thought it was because they were cheaper, but I think the main reason is because they can articulate. Method acting is great when used by a Newman or a Steiger, but downright confusing when attempted by knuckle-dragging illiterates who think it is a way to by- pass real training as actors.

I give it 4 for the sense of location and the promise in the plot. Not the lead actors' fault, they did their best. I don't suppose anyone involved will go near Onah as a director again. Maybe he can make a career as a screen-writer.

It looked like something made by a student. I see here that it was. I think a good rule-of-thumb for novice directors is to keep it simple, then add special effects and gimmicks as their skills increase with experience.

I always choose my rating before opening IMDb to avoid influence. With rare exceptions, I rate about -1 point bellow average, -2 if it's an action movie, -3 when it shows an apathetic guy in a spaceship (sorry Matt). Over time, I became pretty good at guessing ratings. I was extremely surprised to see that most of you gave this movie a 5. Looking at the demographics, women are rating higher than man and the delta increases with age. So I've rated this movie like an old American lady. Maybe we are both missing a sweet voice telling us stories while watching a guy running in a grey city. The dissociation of the narration and the picture is perfectly cinematographic and used to be common decades ago. It is not an incursion literature in cinema, but it just requires some imagination to visualize what's not on scene. Recent movies for younger generations intend to avoid ellipsis at all cost and depict in details and in real time or slow-mo each aspect of a story, leaving no room for imagination. What else can I say? - I like the highly multifaceted characters - The storyline follows several unexpected turns. If someone pretends to have guessed the next moves, don't believe him. - I didn't notice such a constant voice-over and went through the movie once more choosing 20 random scenes: 2 had a voice-over, 1 had indirect speech and 17 were direct dialogues. So I don't think that the problem with the narration is its duration, but the fact that it takes us far from the context and can be sometimes academic. Personally, I liked learning about the New York immigration timeline. - I've seen so many shaky cams recently, that I barely notice them anymore - For those who like movies with a moral, there is probably one about quick judgment based on out-of-context videos. As a conclusion, I think it's a pretty good evolution to the film-noir. Too bad you all seem to want to bury the genre!