Ricicle

"Clockers" is a disappointing effort from Spike Lee. It is brilliantly filmed and well acted but it marks a decline from the works that made Spike Lee famous such as "Do The Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever". These were much more powerful films which were more controversial and thought provoking. Clockers is too repetitive and becomes uninteresting, a contrast to the must-sees of Lee's earlier career. The cast is full of people that have done better jobs in other Spike Lee films such as John Turturro. There is almost a feeling that this film has been made just for the sake of making a film about drugs on the streets rather than offering any real messages. For Spike Lee at his brilliant best check out "Do The Right Thing", "Malcolm X", and "Jungle Fever".

It seems as if everyone else has already commented on this film so I think I'll be brief. The film was good but perhaps not as brilliant as some of the other comments have suggested. The soundtrack stayed away from many of the real 80s howlers. The best moments had to be the audition with the dude singing Ladies Night stretching "sophisticated mama" to new dimensions and even better the reference to the Sugarhill Gang's Rappers Delight when the old woman has a go at rapping the intro; this was inspired stuff as it brought in a link with the first ever hiphop record at the beginning of the 80s.

I think Bad Girls shows why westerns failed to really cut it in the 1990s. The genre looks outdated here and in many other attempts by the Hollywood studios to revoke interest in the early 1990s. Here they have tried to create a twist by substituting the norm of cowboys being male to an all-girl quartet on the run. It fails to really get past this idea and is unable to debunk western values. For instance although they are supposed to be able to stick up for themselves Drew Barrymore's character resorts to her gender(and the sheriff's weakness) to rescue her friend from jail. Although Barrymore may have looked nice the film does little to prove much about western or gender values. It debunks nothing. Mildly better is Pfeiffer in The Quick And The Dead which provides greater solid entertainment and less hype about how good four Hollywood stars look dressed up as cowboys.