House rap

Golan-Globus decided to follow up its breakout hit of 1984's BREAKIN' with this movie about how Eriq Lasalle is trying to save his neighborhood from developers while being discovered as a great, natural rap star, with a hackneyed plot and club music that sounds like the chick-a-boom stuff that was used as the soundtrack for every cheesy urban movie in the 1970s.

There's a lot of talent lurking onscreen. Not only is it Lasalle's first movie, but Ice-T (credited under his birth name of Tracy Marrow) and his crew are available.

As I usually am with these productions, I'm more fascinated by the fact that all these poor people have brand new shoes and boxing gloves, perfectly maintained browstones that, we are told, are falling apart and, of course, Lasalle's immaculate hair styling with two perfect spit curls than I am by story acting or technical excellence, mostly because there is so little.