State Property

Fade in. Show picture of hommies. Enter voice-over. Beans (Beanie Sigel) tells us what a dog eat dog world this is. All about the Benjamins y'all. Enter titles sequence - lots of pole dancing, close shots of silicon enhanced nipples and focus on ho's wiggling that thang! Camera focus on Beanie and Baby Boy getting down with the girlies. Enter brain light-bulb. Beanie thinks: Yo, had enough of being a poor mother... Time to get rich or die trying. Six weeks later: Beans, Baby Boy and a couple of thugs start randomly shooting drug dealers in broad daylight to take over their business. No police or thugs to hand out pay-back. A year later: Beans rules all, moves out to the suburb, but still shoots, kills or whatever. A dozen or so incoherent sequences of hood crime idiocy later the movie ends. Yo! That was so not cool!

Bad acting, terrible phony script (or more like random parts of scripts clinging together with the use of duct tape) and a tiresome 90 minutes of low-budget pointlessness. Not much more to add but honestly avoid at all costs. It may be low-budget, but that does not take the director off the hook of making something as tacky and superficial as this. Why the hell did anyone make a second part?

At first, I thought I would enjoy State Property, merely because I am a big fan of rap music, and there are a lot of rap artists in the cast, but I was wrong. State Property turned out not to be a film that I am too crazy about. Watching the trailer, I don't mind, but that's about it. After watching only the first 13 minutes of the film, it seemed to me that the concept of making a movie was used as an excuse to let people swear. Sure, rap artists swear a lot, and I was expecting that, but there was so much profanity and slang, that I found it very difficult to follow along. I also didn't see much point to what was going on in the film. (I don't want to give anything away for those people who plan on seeing it.) Don't get me wrong, I've seen a few films like this before, but with those films, it was easier to follow along with the plot. With State Property, that just wasn't going to happen. And after watching the first 13 minutes of the film, I knew that I had seen enough. I honestly felt that seeing the whole film would be a waste of my time. Feel free to check out State Property if you wish, but have a dictionary handy, the dialogue can be tough to interpret and be aware, this movie, from what I've seen, is nowhere near comedic.

State Property (2002) was a typical gangster (now gangsta') movie like we've seen since the 1930's. A previous IMDB reviewer wrote that it alluded to Goodfellas. It goes back much further than that. Beans Sigel's character, Beans, is very reminiscent of Rico Bandello, from Little Caesar (1930's). (Rico's character has become so intertwined with popular culture, it is parodized by Chief Wiggum on the Simpsons).

Beans, tired of being broke, and seeing no end to his financial troubles in sight, decides that the only way to improve his station in life is to make it happen his own way- through a murderous rampage to extend his criminal empire. Sounds familiar? It should if you've seen Scarface, Little Caesar, Goodfellas, and literally dozens of other crime/gangster/gangsta' movies. Like all of these movies, the ambitious young character, Beans, not satisfied with an incredible fortune wants more, possible too much. Also, much like many of the central characters that came before him, more than money, Beans wants respect.

The movie was better than IMDB users have rated it, but not stellar. Parts of it are gripping, but from the moment Beans gets his grand idea of starting his criminal empire, you know how it will end. It's enjoyable if you like gangster films and are fascinated by the justifications of morality that these gangsters use. But if you're looking for an installation that brings a whole new twist to a genre, look elsewhere. This plot's been done. Ironically, towards the end, Beans encapsulates this point perfectly: "The players change; the game stays the same." Beans is the new player, in a plot dating back almost a century.

Cheers,

TK

Let me start off first by saying, that just by looking at the cast I came to the conclusion that this movie would be terrible. But I decided to give it a chance, and I regret it because I wasted an hour and an half where I could have been doing something a bit more constructive rather than seeing senseless violence. The movie starts off with the introduction of the character Beans, a local drug dealer. Feeling frustrated with his mediocre street credibility, he proceeds to start knocking off the local competition.

All is well until he bucks heads with Untouchable Jay, or some name along that line, and engages in a all out gang war. In the end he gets 3 life sentences, emphasizing that Beans is indeed State Property. I would write more, but I am staring to get a headache just thinking about this movie and the time I wasted watching it. And even if you have a hour and half to spare, go do something else, do not subject you brain to such mush.

This movie should've been called 'Urban Stereotypes For Dummies' as it uses every cliché imaginable. The story is a Scarface-wannabe, street thugs rising up in the drug world. While Scarface may have glorified this type of life, this movie just dragged out a plot that it couldn't successfully deliver. The acting is non-existent. I've seen better cold readings than this. And the directing just plain stunk. Too many close ups. The director should consider using medium and long shots on occasion.

I'm going to change my cable provider if movies like this are the best they can offer.