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.

Vastly underrated, this gem was recently rediscovered after decades of hiding.

Mario van Peebles is Oscar worthy in this masterpiece. Turbo and Ozone could take lessons from him on this one.

Set in Pittsburgh, the cinematography certainly won awards. No need for CGI here, just raw talent in action.

If Van Peebles were a dessert, he'd definitely be a chocolate waterfall here.

Once you see it on You Tube, it'll forever remain in your heart. I've watched it 6x already and I suspect it'll be a mainstay in the rotation. It's not going to bump Smokey & the Bandit from its' all-time top status, but it did replace Breakin II: Electric Bugaloo from the throne. Enjoy with or without subtitles.

John Hood (Mario Van Peebles) is released from prison. He goes home to his grandma and younger brother. He reconnects with his best friend Ice (Eriq La Salle). The evil landlord Wilson is trying to evict the multi-ethnic downtrodden neighborhood. Hood and his friends work to fight against the villainous land-developer. He falls for rival Duane's girlfriend, Dixie (Tasia Valenza).

If this is a disconnected sequel to Breakin', then this is a complete failure. I would love to have Breakin' 3 with the original crew. As a new story on its own, this is still a failure. If they want a movie about rapping, make Ice-T the protagonist. He's the only connecting tissue and he deserves a chance. His acting couldn't be any worst. Mario has always been a hustler and a try hard. He tries hard to be a rapper but he's far from one. I couldn't believe the first rap is about food. Eriq La Salle is stiff and cold. He can be that way in ER because that's the character. In this, he's just stiff and he's not a real rapper either. Duane is a ridiculously villain. He's white bread trying to be hard and it comes off like a cartoon. I do like the town council rap for its hokey sincerity but the closing credits rap is just cringeworthy. I want to like this but too much of this is cringeworthy.

Mario Van Peebles is very engaging in this rather harmless attempt by the Cannon Group to capture mid-80s rap culture on screen. He plays John "Rappin'" Hood, a street tough who's changed his ways after time in jail, and returns to his 'hood to romance the lovely Dixie (Tasia Valenza), set his younger brother Allan (Leo O'Brien) on the right track, and fight back against Duane (Charles Grant), a vicious former crony, and Thorndike (Harry Goz), a sleazy land developer.

Done in a musical style, with numbers delivered at fairly frequent intervals, "Rappin'" is not to be taken seriously. People could definitely argue that it's in dire need of bite, edginess, and grit, but for a PG rated look at inner-city people who find a way to express themselves, it's hard to truly dislike. One could also argue that a lot of the rhyming is inane and goofy, but this viewer liked that the picture had a sense of humour (like the scene with the hooker, or that utterly dopey number "Snack Attack"). Ice-T (who has a number of his own, as an auditioning rapper) dubbed in Van Peebles' rhyming.

The picture does take problems of inner-city living lightly, but then director Joel Silberg and company likely wanted to avoid ever making this too unpleasant, in order to reach as broad an audience as possible. In fact, the whole thing DOES come off as a little cheesy (with opportunities for many of the main cast members to belt out a line or two during the closing credits number).

Grant and Goz are appropriately odious villains; you do hope that Grant brawls with Van Peebles at some point so he can get his ass righteously handed to him. Valenza is a charming love interest, Eyde Byrde is appealing as the grandmother, Rony Clanton is good as a slimy landlord, there are early roles for future stars Kadeem Hardison and Eriq LaSalle as two of Van Peebles' crew, and the enchanting character actress Rutanya Alda also has a role as an area resident. It's always nice to see her in anything.

As this viewer already said, the picture is entertaining enough to watch provided you don't ever take it that seriously.

Six out of 10.

With the success of "Beat Street" and "Breakin'", Hollywood felt it was the right time to exploit the world of rap music. Keep in mind that this was 1985, and the music was still being promoted by the music. No videos, no shiny record covers, just the music and the people. With that in mind, someone felt it was pretty good to make a film about a few people struggling for a better life, and doing it by having each character rap during key moments in the movie. I don't know what they were thinking, maybe a "West Side Story" for the breakdancers? While this movie could (and should) be exposed as weak, there's a small part inside of you that you eat up like cake. Sure it's cheesy, but at the same time their hearts were in the right place, just not doing it correctly. Mario Van Peebles tries to rap, but the high/lowlight has got to be the ending of the movie, when the entire cast is given a few lines to rap, including the "cowboy" character. And you thought Eminem was the first white wonder.