House rap

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.

... and I mean both strange and hilarious. If you lived through that decade this film is even funnier as a bit of cheesy nostalgia. The plot devices could have been used in a Great Depression era programmer - the guy just out of the joint who wants to make good with a kid brother on the path to prison and the mom with a heart of gold, the pretty lady record producer with an abusive boyfriend who is a corny coupling of Elvis and Billy Idol in the looks department, the evil developer/landlord who is trying to drive out the poor people in the neighborhood so he can tear down the slums and make a fortune, and the developer's lackey who looks like the guy who was the runner up in getting the part of the mayor in Robocop.

There are the just plain weird rap acts, the trips through clubs where half of the women are dressed like Madonna wannabes with the electrocuted hair, the corny minimalist dialogue, and all of the guys wearing the single glove like that will make them Michael Jackson. Throwing a raincoat over the shoulder of B sixties cult film star Arch Hall Jr. wouldn't have made him Sinatra, and the single glove bit doesn't work wonders of transformation either.

Recommended for the unintended humor of it all, but do not watch it in the middle of the night if you are trying to get some sleep. The hilarity and unintended goofiness of the proceedings will wake you right up.

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.

Rappin has to be one of the most cliched hip hop films in history. The script is cheesy, the rappin is horrible and the soundtrack doesn't thump. Mario Van Pebbles may a good actor, but the man can't rap. I give this movie a -** out of ****

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.