Caught Up

This is a silly movie that involves a man who has recently been let out of prison. He meets a girl and gets mixed up in this silly underworld scenario, complete with renegade rastafarians and peel away facial disguises. But its not as good as it sounds... you have to put up with a lot of mediocre writing and overacting in order to get to any of the above-mentioned treats. The story has all of these tricky twists that aim to add depth but really only complicate the already-ailing story. To tell you the truth, the only reason I watched it was so that I could see the extremely short cameo by rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, playing the character "Kool Kitty Kat".

One funny thing- you should watch for all of the funny faces that the actors make throughout the movie. Its really strange how often it happens, and I don't know if it is a biproduct of the overacting or an inside joke or what. In any case, if you for some reason DO decide to watch this movie, its something to do.

A very typical set up - ex-con with a kid, wants to make a new start. The main character's complete lack of bravado makes him an amiable enough lead, but it's not enough to save the film from clunky dialogue, and some clunkier acting. However, there are some cinematically nice moments, and it's worth the rental price just to see Jeffrey Combs' hysterical, and very... memorable... cameo.

Gems sometimes crop up in the most surprising places. "Caught Up" provides the pleasures of a well-structured plot, especially the payoff one gets when something brought up earlier means something important (even clever) later, e.g. the identity of the hitman. Combine these tasty plot twists with good acting and good dialogue, and you've got a movie worth staying up to watch on cable

A poorly written urban crime drama that would have worked better as a sketch in HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE, CAUGHT UP stars Bokeem Woodbine as an ex-con trying to go straight. Shortly after his release from prison, he meets Trish (Cynda Williams, whose mediocre performance is in sharp contrast to her impressive work in ONE FALSE MOVE), who's, of all things, a psychic being pursued by an evil Rastafarian from whom she stole a huge diamond. Instead of staying the hell away from this apparently high-maintenance love interest (she's beautiful, you see) and trying to reconnect with his former squeeze, he agrees to help her. Every stereotype and cliché is used, as well as howlingly bad dialogue ("Nobody was waiting for me but a dude named destiny") and the perfunctory hip-hop cameos. This film seems to have been made solely to promote its accompanying soundtrack, but with hardly any rap music included in the movie, what exactly was the point of all this?

I can't believe I've never seen this before. Bokeem Woodbine is great in everything he's in and plays Daryl the main character who can't seem to catch a break. The moral of the story is if you get bad vibes and something is telling you to stay away from certain people you generally should.