Conexão Jamaica

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Biggs (Kymani Marley) and Wayne (Spragga Benz) grew up together on the mean streets of Kingston, Jamaica, and build up a huge drug dealing network that extends from their home town to the streets of Washington and Miami. But as the stakes rise and the games turn deadly, their rise to the top could be followed by a spectacular fall.

Having West Indian work colleagues, the particular lingo they use grows on you after a while and you can pick up some of this particular mangling of the English language. But the 'patois' featured heavily in Shottas would appear to be so heavy that subtitles are required through out, even if you do try to get rid of them on the menu screen. Their particular phrases, descriptions and certainly insults will certainly make an impression on you and so, even if this tale of young upstarts rising through the criminal underworld isn't particularly original or inspired, it's distinctive and amusing enough for this reason alone. Bob Marley's son Kymani Marley has presence in the lead role, and there's other musical talent in the cast including Wyclef Jean in a supporting role. ***

this by far is One of the realest movies from Jamaica to hit the streets internationally since Rockers and Harder they Come...Cess Silvera Has by far Made one of the Greatest Jamaican Movies of Modern time...The Official New Release is So Crisp and Clear.Beats the Bootleg that I've had since 04...Lookin forward to Shottas 2...The Revised Soundtrack that Stephen Marley did Far surpasses the Wack Wyclef Soundtrack from the bootleg. Ky-Mani and Spragga Benz are Perfect for the roles they portray, Along with the rest of the carefully hand picked cast of the film. It's real and raw and shows the corruption of the Jamaican Government and Police that continues today.

If you like shoot em ups then this will appeal to you and to be real you shouldnt be watching if you don't i supppose thats why it is called shottas. It basically follows the fortunes of two young men who grow up as close as brothers. They are the original shottas two youts who grow in the ghetto and use ghetto menatlity to get them out. They go to America and ive a good life for a while until all the bad deeds in their past consume them.

On the whole the film is very entertaining and to some degree real( however the last time i was in kingston i saw a father beat hs son for playing guns) it highlights not only the poorness of Jamaican people but also the political entities that keep them poor and how these entities use the so called bad men of yard to put them in power.

Kymani and Spragga's acting is a very good effort and if the opportunity arises for them to continue they will no doubt become very good at it, i am not too sure who wrote the dialouge but it is very real and it shows "wayne" to have a wicked sense of humour.

Oh and watch out for Max and the sick mentality he has which is another way of projecting the futility and destruction caused by the greed to be the richest and baddest man.

A bit uneven, Shottas suffers from low quality transfers that just add to the film's problems. My dvd copy would sometimes cut to a black screen that would say: Insert more robbery scenes here. Technical problems aside: the meaningful dialogue is quite slim- character development seems aimed at an increase in robberies, the direction is lop-sided and meandering, never really wanting to show you much more than hot chicks and nice whips(would have made for a nice extended music video). While I did like the music, it's over-used and just sort of "there"- didn't do much for the film other than elicit some head-nodding on my part. The Anderson character is a joke-he's a political-bad guy cut-out. And how about that "tongue-in-cheek" joke about Wyclef's character banking on a music career? Horrible. Did I care what happened at the end of the film to the main characters? Not really, they were bad people who did bad things, a sentiment I held regarding Cess Silvera's directing effort.

Firstly, it was fairly entertaining and had very good camera work although will look slightly outdated now. But it followed the same 3 chords the whole film. Dialogue a bit forced at times and some "actors" seemed to be anything but. It's fine for ok watch but won't be remembered as anything special.