Gimme the Loot

MPAA Rated – Not Rated
It’s 1:29 Long
A Review by:
The Dude on the Right

Gimme the Loot
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Ty Hickson, Tashiana Washington
MPAA Rated: Not Rated
Released By: IFC Films
Released on: September 17, 2013
Kiddie Movie: Unless you want them to be foul-mothed graffiti artists.
Date Movie: If she likes a well-done movie.
Gratuitous Sex: It’s got some hanky-panky.
Gratuitous Violence: Nothing horrible.
Action: Nah.
Laughs: Lots.
Memorable Scene: Trying to break into the rich girl’s apartment.
Memorable Quote: “I got stickage!”
Directed By: Adam Leon
Cool Things About the Blu-ray: The “All City Hour” is fun, and its got the commentary and deleted scene stuff, too.

Sometimes a movie surprises you. Sometimes that surprise is bad, sometimes that surprise is good, and sometimes that surprise is great. “Gimme the Loot” is a movie that was a great surprise.

Sure, that opening paragraph should be enough to get you to go and get the movie, or at least download it, but I’ll give you some story stuff to help you along.

If you see a synopsis about a couple of kids in the inner city who like to spray graffiti you might shy away thinking this is going to be either a do-gooder kind of film, how kids find out they can be more than graffiti taggers, or you might think the movie is a sad look at the inner city, with gang shootings and danger. “Gimme the Loot” isn’t either, but a great story about Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington), two friends who live in the Bronz and happen to be graffiti taggers. When their latest creation gets painted over by a rival gang, the duo decides that the tagging war is too back and forth for them, and that they need to hit the ultimate goal for taggers in New York City, tagging the New York Mets home run apple.  The good news: They have a connection to let them sneak into the stadium. The bad news: They need $500 in two days to pay him to let them in.

So our couple is now on a quest to scrape up $500, and how do you try to make money in the inner city? Well, you try to sell a cell phone you took from the kid who took your bike, you sell some dope to the rich girls, and you, well, you also see a necklace at the rich girl’s apartment and decide it might be easy to steal.  With that we get Malcolm working the selling drugs side through some stoners, and we get Sofia doing her best to help out with the stealing a necklace heist, and through it all we get to wonder if maybe Malcolm and Sofia can actually pull this off, if they actually have a thing for each other, and if their life will be better by becoming famous.

The thing with “Gimme the Loot” is that, and I don’t know how accurate it is, but it really is just trying to show two kids living in the inner city, during a couple of atypical kind of days for them, complete with some rival tagging-gang interaction, some punks in the neighborhood, some people who are always a little more “trouble” than they are, although they need their help, and some hanky-panky.

The language in this movie is real, so be ready for a lot of f-bombs, and there’s a slight “beating up” part, but for the most part this movie nicely shows the weird world of tagging, surviving, scraping, and trying to be famous, and maybe even some love. The kids actually have a nice heart, though their circumstances put them in some bad situations, and the writing in the movie is also witty at times, with the kind of straight talk you would expect from any batch of teens, like “You’re fucking breath smells like ass, so get out of my face,” and “I got stickage!”

Look, just get this movie and be pleasantly surprised. It’s not gut-busting laughter for the most part, but for a well done, entertaining comedy with two characters you can’t help but like, “Gimme the Loot” is a 4 ½ star out of 5 film.

As far as the Blu-ray, the “All City Hour” featurette is great, and you get some of the other normal things like commentary and deleted scenes, but really, the movie is the gem here.