Featuring Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover and starring Common, Sheldon Candis' direction of this Baltimore-set coming of age story is distinctly fluid.
When ex-convict Vincent (Comon) and his impressionable nephew, 3 year-old Woody (Michael Rainey Jr) form a very likely friendship, it turns out to be Vincent's bizarre and fascinating reliance on Woody that leads this film away from being another gangster-done-good movie and into a far more frightening coming-of-age story.
Candis cleverly pulls and pushes his audience away from his characters, challenges our perceptions of where this film will likely take us and simultaneously makes a statement about the state of the US and that ever present theme, the American dream. One of the notions he begins with is a familiar but still repulsive image of a child with a gun, effortlessly depicting the fragility of this central character and more importantly eliciting that universal anxiety that occurs when something so delicate is close to something so deadly.
He runs with this as Uncle Vincent goes about pitching his restaurant idea to a bank manager with young Woody in tow playing truant and asking questions about his absentee mother, Vincent's sister. Shot thoughtfully with a deep sentimentality for the places and people Vincent is reacquainting himself with, there is a striking fluidity to Candis' camera as it absorbs the Baltimore Woody and Michael inhabit.
But as Vincent is reluctantly dragged back into drug trafficking, between teaching his nephew how to drive and how to shoot a gun, he grows increasingly dependent on his young ally while every level of Baltimore's adults are ready to break him. With his downward spiral comes a brilliantly emotive sound design. From the white noise that screams confusion and volatility to the deep persistent bass that sounds like the very blood pumping through our ears, Candis has his audience in the palm of his hand.
What's more, the skilful transformation of Vincent happens almost without us realising as he spends his day simultaneously resisting and using the drugs world for his own purposes with a confused emotional and practical regard for Woody. That's how Candis reminds us of his political stance on his characters. “America ain't a country” says someone, “it's a company.”
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