Dope is the story of a high school senior and his two friends who are obsessed with the 1990’s. But of course, the movie is not just about their decade of preference, there’s a girl, there’s a college admissions counselor and a drug dealer. To be more accurate, there’s multiples of some of those people, but…

Story: In the end, it finishes as a nice story. But, it does take some patience to get through to the end. There is an underlying racial element to the story as well, punctuated by the N word. I appreciate the way the filmmakers take the opportunity to address the use of the word in mixed company to clarify its use. And the fact that the kid from a rough part of Los Angeles makes good in the end is satisfying. How he gets there is up for debate…

Performances: The lead character is played by a young unknown by the name of Shameik Moore. He clearly has some growing to do as an actor; He did blossom at the end – BUT, his best scene is during the credits where he revives damn-near ALL of the popular dances of the ‘90s. Truly delightful to watch for someone who was around to see all of those dances in person! The remainder of the cast is fairly unknown as well which is a good thing and a bad thing; The good is that there is no star power to overshadow the story. The bad is that there are clearly no oscar-worthy performances… not even close…

Visual: At first it’s hard to tell if the story is actually set in the 90’s or present day. I was only able to confirm it is present day by the cars parked in the street. The costumers nail the look of the 90’s with the main character and his friends. The rest of the look is typical for a disadvantaged neighborhood near LA.

Rating: I’m giving Dope a C-. The performances are not great, the story is somewhat painful getting to the point and outside of the scenes about the N word and the ending credits with the dancing, I’m not impressed. But, I reserve the right of small, non-commercial filmmakers to make films of this kind so that their stories are told as well. I’ll let you decide whether you want to call it a true independent film or just a plain old B movie…