Waist Deep

Posted by Brian C. Gibson (brian@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 25, 2006

Release Date: October 10, 2006

“Lessons learned from this flick? You can shoot and kill a handful of bad people, rob empty houses in the Hollywood Hills because a half naked girl can fool police, and you can drive to Mexico and live happily ever after in a Malibu-styled beach house without a passport, just a bag full of money. Let me get my glock!”                                                                   -Anyanwu, IMDB.com

After getting out of prison o2 (Tyrese Gibson) has only motivation, his son Junior. When his car is stolen with Junior in it, o2 has no choice but to find out who and why it was done. Convinced that a prostitute named Coco (Meagan Good) had something to do with the kidnapping, o2 begins his search for Junior. After asking his cousin Lucky (Larenz Tate) to find out who has Junior, o2 finds that the situation is only getting worse. Thinking that o2 has some money of his, Meat (The Game) and his gang took Junior for ransom. Now it is up to o2 and Coco to find $100,000 in order to save Junior.

Films like Waist Deep are pure moneymakers without substance. Provided with an extremely simple screenplay and a cast of Tyrese, this film could have only been made for one purpose: make more money than the production budget. I don’t really understand what Vondie Curtis-Hall was trying to say in his directorial debut. After being handed the director’s chair, and a multi-million dollar film project, you would think that the man would want to say something useful with his film. Perhaps like most people though, he just needs to pay some bills. There were instances of scenes throughout the film that made you think that Curits-Hall was trying to say something about the country we live in, but he then shatters those notions with a bank-robbing montage backdropped by hardcore rap. As far as entertainment is concerned, Waist Deep does not offer much. Moving much like a bad music video laced with clich©s, the film is almost as predictable as Tara Reid’s behavior on a Friday night.

Tyrese Gibson, if he does in fact care about his career, needs to find a different outlet for advancing his career. While not sporting an amazing resume, Tyrese is a rising star and will continue to get work. My challenge for Tyrese Gibson (no relation) is to take some advice from Meagan Good and pursue some more dramatic roles. Good was featured in the fantastic noir film Brick. My advice from Tyrese is that next time you are holding a screenplay and a film executive shows you a movie poster for the film and you are shown wearing jeans and a wife-beater…run away from the project and find something to better yourself.

The DVD is filled with the same old standard stuff that sometimes makes a DVD purchase worth it. No…I’m not talking about the “Bad Girl” music video by Black Buddafly, I’m talking about the part where the filmmakers and actors talk about how great they are. During a feature called “Drive-By Filmmaking”, director Vondie Curtis-Hall and director of photography Shane Hurlbut basically embarrass themselves. Hurlbut speaks of Waist Deep with so much enthusiasm and passion that it almost forced me to watch the film again just to make sure I had the correct disc in. Listening to Hurlbut and Curtis-Hall talk about the cars in the film was confusing on so many levels. Curtis-Hall was saying how the cars were a centerpiece of the film, but I didn’t see any nice cars. Hurlbut explained how they wanted a car that matched Tyrese’s size and intensity on the screen, so they had him drive a 1995 Chevy Impala.

Am I the only one who is laughing?

The Upside: Meagan Good is the only reason I’d ever watch this twice

The Downside: Tyrese as a gun wielding ex-con trying to act his way through a bad music video.

On the Side: Vondie Curtis-Hall, Tyrese Gibson and Meagan Good were all nominated for 2006 Black Movie Awards for this film.

Film Grade: D

DVD Grade: D

Read more articles by Brian C. Gibson