I just finished watching The Right Connections, and I somewhat enjoyed it.
First of all, I approach movies on an individual basis. I do not care about who is in it or not in it. When it is over, I just ask myself one simple question: did it entertain me?
I think the biggest problems this movie had was both finding the right audience, and in Hammer himself.
The movie is almost a plot lifted from The Brady Bunch (which ironically the kids try to sing the theme song). 4 kids discover that their divorced mom has been laid off, so decides to go back to school. But they discover that their absentee father owes the IRS $5,000. Desperate to prevent their mom from leaving college, they try to find a way to earn the money themselves. When they hear of a "Hip-Hop Contest" with a prize of $5,000, they think they got it made.
They then con an ex-rap artist (Hammer) to train them. In an almost biographical role, Hammer is down on his luck, ignored by his former fans, and is on the verge of losing everything he owns.
Can he take this group of middle-class white kids and make them a Hip-Hop group? No, not really. But he does do his best, and teaches both himself and the kids something in the process.
One of the things I enjoyed most in this movie is both the almost biographical nature of Hammer's career. Him and his producer try to convince a record executive that he still has fans, and the executive is white. But to him, the only thing that matters is money. And while the kids do have little talent, they do try.
Also I enjoyed the clean nature of the story. One of the reasons that Hammer's career failed so fast is that his "fans" suddenly realized that all of his songs were about God. And while the message in this movie is not so heavy-handed, it is centered around family.
Overall, I left this movie with a fairly good feeling, and with several laughs. The sequence where the mother walks in seeing this strange black man in a leather jacket "attacking" her youngest daughter (he was tickeling her) was fairly strong, and handled in a fairly mature manner. Both the mother tries to apologize for her wrong asumption, and Hammer tries to make her feel comfortable, understanding her fear, and why she might have had it.
I rated this movie a 7. Not for the acting, nor the worn story, but simply because I enjoyed it, and it made me feel good at the end. After all, that is why we watch movies, right?
At the end, there was an obvious opening for a sequal, which was obviously never made. I have to admit I am glad for that. If they ever made a sequal of this movie, it would probably be so contrived and silly, I could not enjoy it.
