'Great Gatsby' as a hip-hop love story
BY JOHN MONAGHAN
FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER
October 28, 2005
"G" opens much like any film based on "The Great Gatsby."
In the shadow of an East Coast summer mansion, a lone man walks on a windswept beach at daybreak. A closer shot reveals he's stumbling, his white suit soaked with blood.
The twist here is that a black man is Gatsby in this hip-hop version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic.
"G" is an ambitious retread of the original story, aided by an attractive cast.
G is Summer G (Richard T. Jones), a superstar rapper recently relocated to the wealthy, WASP-y Hamptons. Nick Carraway is now Tre (Andre Royo), a music magazine reporter who needs to get Summer G's story.
But Tre finds himself watching the developing love triangle involving cousin Sky (Chenoa Maxwell), her husband Chip (Blair Underwood), and the enigmatic G.
Director and cowriter Christopher Scott Cherot succeeds in depicting the modern Gatsby as a successful black man frowned upon by his neighbors, especially the homeowners' association that objects to G's loud parties. The book was about class and the American dream. The movie is too, though it's most interested in the soap opera machinations of the plot.
Jones and Maxwell look good together as the reunited lovers, while a lively supporting cast cleverly depicts the dysfunctional family of musicians that share G's mansion. Royo's Tre keeps things loose as our guide into the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Hip-hop might not have heart, according to Summer G, but his movie has just enough to make up for its lack of polish.
http://www.freep.com/entertainment/m...e_20051028.htm
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Been rated 2 stars out of four, so can't be too bad.
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