Jogo de Traições - A Origem

I watched "True to the Game" last night for the first time. I like Short's role. I think he nailed it. People's seemed very natural and "sincere" in her role. Most of the other actors could have watched the movie instead of starring in it ... acting was poor. I think Short and his crew were too gullible for "skilled" drug dealers ... walking into traps etc. At the beginning of the movie, Short rambled too much and at one point I wondered if he was speaking English. The story line was shoddy and did not depict the book as it should. With all that said I was still captivated and intrigued enough to watch it to the end .... or maybe it was just Short that got me. ... lol

I'll never be able to explain what keeps me coming back to urban dramas even when I've expressed my occasional distaste for many. Maybe it comes from the hope that as the years go by, there will be one urban drama that shakes up the genre and challenges old concepts and writing. However there are films like True to the Game that makes me believe the genre has gotten too comfortable.

The film, based on the based selling novel by Teri Woods, follows Quadir (Columbus Short), a well established street hustler. He began to have thoughts of stepping out of the game after falling for Gina (Erica Peeples) and receiving threats from others taking over his position.

Usually by this point, I try to say something positive about the movie, but frankly, I just don't have much to say at all about this. It's your typical run of the mill urban drama and no plot point or actor can elevate the material past that. While the movie does have some occasionally nice lighting, it's not long till almost every scenery looks artificial to the eye. The editing is even stranger, when it almost immediately changes scenes after someone is shot or a short time to react from a shooting.

The one thing that bothers me the most about the film is the lack of emotional impact. There's one scene in particular near the end of the film, that's supposed to be a emotional moment, but is so rushed like the rest of the film and the rest of the film slogs even further down a hole it can't crawl out of.

I haven't read the book to True to the Game, but I feel the movie gives me the feeling I'm not missing much at all. While I commend them trying to make material with a very small budget, it doesn't make up for lazy writing, unengaged acting or the lace front beards almost every male has on.

True to the Game trilogy is my favorite urban fiction collection, hands down. I had such high hopes for the film. Things I liked: Colombus Short surprisingly portrayed Quadir better than I initially thought he would. The clothing choice for the men was on point and stayed true to how I imagined them to look, based on the book. Qua's right hand man, Tyriq, was very convincing. I enjoyed his character. Jarell had some off moments, but I think his character was well-played and added the nemesis-type flair to keep it interesting. Things I didn't like: Gena is quite lovely as I imagined but her acting was sub-par at best, as was 95% of the cast! Rasun, Qua's other righthand, was absolutely unconvincing. Draya, Shirell, could've been left out of the movie altogether. She has no acting ability at all. Aubrey was not in the books at all. Her character was forced and she added no value to the movie in my opinion, just like Shirell.

Those are major components off the top of my head. I wanted to see a classic, to match the legend of the books. I watched it 3x in 2days to come to my final conclusion, but at best; I'd consider this a B-league film. An exponentially higher budget and a more experienced cast would have placed this film at the top. I believe TTTG would be mentioned with the likes of Goodfellas, Paid in Full, Dead Presidents, etc had it been given the proper resources and due diligence it deserves. Very disappointing. I would love to see it continue with the major escrow this one needed, maybe even scrapped and remade from scratch. The movie does the legacy of Quadir and Gena absolutely no justice whatsoever! Come harder next time, Miss Woods. We need stories like yours on the big screen!

Surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with the LA Times and New York Times critics on this one. The movie is so terrible people left the theater before it was half over. To make matters worst, the novel was amazingly well done and seemed hard to mess up. The movie plot and story line are so nonsensical, and hilariously unconvincing, it's hard to imagine anyone but amateurs put any work into this film. With the exception of Columbus, and maybe one other person, the casting and acting are so horrible one wonders who was in charge of quality control. The special effects, to the extent they could be called that, seemed to be from the 70s, as the film is very low budget and wrought with cheap, almost invisible action scenes. Yet, it's packed with long meaningless conversations that left me longing for the next scene. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the movie is that it is so unbelievably boring, you're left thinking it has to get better and it actually gets worst until the credits appear. I found myself wondering who gave the thumbs up to such a poor movie and why such a great novel received such a low budget and obvious lack of cinematic support. The movie isn't worth purchasing on demand. I would recommend waiting for Netflix as it's not going to last in theaters much longer.

It's not cool to use a title from a well known book about "the game" and make a movie this bad. What's the number to the refund hot line? I am not joking. This movie should have never been released unless it was on YouTube. I thought about giving it two stars because Columbus Short did a decent job with the little he had and the music wasn't bad. But I can't. it's a joke. This nonsense has to stop.