Home is where the heart is, as they say. But what this invisible they really means is that home is your family. Home is security and love (or luv), or home is nothing at all. If you take the words "home" and "house" the difference in connotation is that a home implies warmth. Without security and love and home becomes nothing more than four walls and some stained carpeting--a house. But where does this love come from? How is it defined? If someone does bad things with good intentions for another person is that love, or is that selfishness? And if we accept those wrongdoings knowing that it will provide a bit of happiness for us, is that justified?
Woody's home is his Uncle Vincent. He is a boy of 11 who has grown up in what I would call a "rough area". A dead father and a mother who has abandoned him has left Woody with his uncle and grandmother in dangerous quarters in Baltimore. Uncle Vince is newly released from prison--more importantly released 12 years earlier than expected, and although he seems like a genial enough man there is duplicity in his eyes. Over the course of a day Vince takes Woody around the city to teach him how to be a man and to try and secure them a future.
Uncle V's idea is to open a crab shack, but in order to do so he needs $20,000 and a new identity. Woody in tow, he falls back into old habits, seeing a range of people that any upstanding person would cross the street if they saw them down the road. Tensions begin to mount as gang leaders hear of Vince's release. They don't know where his sudden reemergence puts them in the hierarchy of the underground which creates problems that spiral into disastrous consequences.
Amidst this neo-noir "driller" (drama-thriller, coined by the filmmakers) Uncle V seems to take a serious interest in creating a proper man out of a boy who doesn't seem even to have hit puberty yet. Going to the bank to apply for a loan Vince dresses Woody in some sharp threads and adjusts his posture to make a good impression. Later he teaches Woody to drive his car, which he takes to a bit too expertly. Towards the end there is a lovely moment when some crime bosses and Vince show Woody the proper way to shell a crab.
All of these seemingly good intentions are put into odd perspective, however, after discussing the film a bit with director Sheldon Candis. When asking him where he got his inspiration for the movie he said that it was based off of a relationship that he had with one of his uncles. Candis himself was never witness to any murders or drug-exchanges which this film revolves around, but after his uncle's death he was informed by a police officer that on one occasion alone his uncle killed four men. Candis told me that he, as a young boy would sleep in the car while his uncle would be in places where he wasn't allowed to enter. There was a look of fear and true shame when he told me that he was probably there with his uncle because a police officer would be less likely to pull over a car with a child in it. He told me that he was probably there to help him mule drugs. The relationship they shared was sham.
In light of these facts it seems to me that Woody's forced maturation was not the result of V's desire to make him into a self-sufficient young man, which he claims beneath the guise of a father-figure, but it is rather the work of a man who uses "luv", some broad-brushstroke word, to mold an innocent child (innocence as in naive, not as in without guilt) into his own, cracked image. I think had I not had the discussion with Candis I might have seen Uncle V as a failed hero, someone who is stuck in his ways but trying to better himself for the sake of another. Now I think he is a man with end goals, but no morals to use in accomplishing what he wants.
When looking at it in that perspective, which I think is probably the correct one as far as Candis's vision is concerned, Common's performance as Uncle Vince rises from great to superb. This flawed man becomes a villain, but Common navigates that without making the audience aware that he is not someone who deserves sympathy. The devil must be invited in, to use another platitude, and Common certainly had me welcoming him. Even more exemplary than Common was Michael Rainey Jr. as Woody. Only 13 years old this is a star in the making. He had some extremely difficult material to handle, but I never once doubted him. He was a child, a professional, a fighter and a wounded animal.
This is a tough film. It is not especially inventive, but knowing where it came from makes it especially exciting and unsettling to think about. Its cast is so good and I always find material like this, which is very foreign to me, incredibly interesting. The ending of the movie is rather open-ended which I was unsure of. But reflecting back and looking at Candis I now feel more hopeful than pessimistic. Candis received luv, not love, and he turned out fine. His uncle wasn't able to mold Candis into his scarred form so maybe Woody can free himself too.
3.5/4
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