It's a boring, toothless, cartoonish fantasy made by some snot-nosed little white boy that's got NO idea about That Life. He watches a buncha rap videos and a bunch of Girls Gone Wild porn featuring Snoop Dogg and said "Golly jeepers, I wanna be apart of that! Hedonism is coooool" and just made a movie with James Franco as his self-insert "gangsta" fantasy, giving one of the most stereotypical performances you could possibly have with that role. It's like if Beavis and Butthead unironically made a movie; it's that level of transparent and whack.
"WOWZERS, HE LIKES SCARFACE AND RAMBLES ABOUT 'DA AMERICAN DREAM'! SAVE SOME NEW GROUND FOR THE REST OF US TO BREAK, HARMONY KORINE, YOU'RE BLOWING MY MIND HERE!"
Like, I'm honestly getting more and more pissed off at that performance the more I think about it. That's how you really thing all gangsters talk, huh? You really think they're all just that stupid and have nothing else going on upstairs except violence and misogyny? THat's what you think of all those poor neighborhoods with those kind of people in there? Do you even KNOW what a real gangster is? FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU Christ what an insultingly shallow stupid role for Franco to take...
It doesn't work as a "cautionary tale" or a "satire of whatever" or a "critique of this culture" because it does nothing with anything. Selena Gomez is the closet thing resembling a character in this movie, and if she would've stuck around you might have had something. But no, she exits even before the 2nd Act begins and what you're left with is BEYOND ABSURD caricatures of who-cares-about-their-names bikini babes and Cartoon Gangster Man and the rest of the film just meanders around aimlessly until Gucci Mane shows up and stuff happens because Reasons.
You NEEDED Selena Gomez's main character as the anchor of this film to be the object of contrast to get your message across, otherwise it JUST becomes what it's supposedly a commentary on; a self-indulgent porn and gun fantasy that has nothing even remotely clever or insightful going on.
This is neck-in-neck with Trash Humpers as Harmony Korine's worst film in his already unimpressive filmography. I'm having trouble deciding which one is indeed more insulting.
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