I can’t speak to the quality of the ICP movies, but I’ve personally seen a number of Master P’s films (I’m Bout It, I Got The Hook-Up, MP da Last Don, etc) and while none of them are “good” I genuinely and unironically thoroughly enjoy all of them.
One of my guilty pleasures.
I’ve actually seen Big Money Hustlas (the things you do for love…) and so I CAN talk about the quality of the ICP movies.
The entire movie feels like a group of friends got together and just started recording. Outside of the fact that the character Baby Bear keeps rhyming everything, nothing else feels scripted or rehearsed at all. It really just feels like they had a story idea and recorded every scene improv style.
The movie itself is a tribute to Rudy Ray Moore, the Dolemite movies, and blaxsploitation in general… all things that I am actually a massive fan of. However, the world of ICP seems to lack a lot of black people… So while it’s definitely intended as a love letter to these movies (ICP clearly loves the source material and was trying to show that) the movie definitely can come off a lot closer to appropriation than anything at times. Especially with ICP calling everyone “my ninja” which never feels good to watch.
Overall it’s a movie that I can’t say I regret watching as it showcases all of what I love about a genre that I love but if you don’t care about blaxsploitation or Dolemite then it’ll probably just be the negatives with none of those elements of love showing through.
Real talk, Percy taught me to believe in myself enough to make my own way. Dude’s goofy, but I’ll forever love him.
“You see that? We didn’t have to do that for you! Our movie’s the shit!”
Next review: magnets
