‘Gimme the Loot’ Review

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There was a lot of buzz surrounding Adam Leon’s feature-length debut Gimme the Loot given the fact that it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival for Best Narrative Feature, nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and won  writer/director Adam Leon the Someone to Watch Award. The film even competed in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. I say all of this because it seems like the distributors of Gimme the Loot have mistimed the release of this film. I hope I’m wrong and that all of the praise (past and present) is able to get audiences to the theaters.

The premise of Gimme the Loot is simple and Leon sets the stage early by showing the viewers an old recording of All City Hour, a NYC public access talk show. Two graffiti writers recount their story of trying to bomb the New York Mets’ Home Run Apple at Shea Stadium and in doing so, they would become the most famous and revered graffiti artists in the world. It’s been twenty years since that episode aired and no one to this day has successfully tagged the Home Run Apple. Which, of course, becomes the main objective of young graffiti writers and the film’s main characters Sofia and Malcolm.

Sofia (Tashiana Washington) and Malcolm (Ty Hickson) come to this conclusion after their latest work is buffed by a rival crew. They are sick and tired of being disrespected and having their work constantly buffed; they realize they need to do something big and it doesn’t get any bigger than bombing the apple. Malcolm even knows a guy that works security at the Mets’ home stadium, now called Citi Field. All Sofia and Malcolm have to do is come up with $500 to pay Malcolm’s contact and gain access to the apple, thus making Sofia and Malcolm the greatest writers in history. Only problem being they don’t have $500.

Sofia and Malcolm traverse through New York City trying their hardest to scrape together $500 and seem to encounter more setbacks than advances. Even though Sofia and Malcolm resort to petty theft in an attempt to fund their entrance to Citi Field, I still found myself rooting for them. Mostly because of the honesty and realism Washington and Hickson bring to their respective roles. Their chemistry is without a doubt the driving force behind the film; they display their friendship with such warmth, even through constant insults, that it is almost impossible not to like them. Even their foray into petty crime comes off as endearing partially because they are not that good at it rendering all their posturing tough talk to just that – talk. Sofia and Malcolm are merely trying their best to impress one another, oblivious to the fact that they are perfectly suited for each other.

I may be a little biased since Gimme the Loot centers around graffiti and New York City, both of which I love greatly. What was great about this film was how both aspects (and more) – graffiti, NYC, youth culture, the joys of summer – were presented so poignantly, yet without ever becoming overwhelming. There are hundreds of films about New York and being young in New York and trying to find one’s place in New York, but few are so honest and down-to-earth as I found Gimme the Loot to be. So many of those films focus on the grandeur of the city – the fast pace, the tall buildings, the millions of inhabitants – that often, the characters’ stories seem to get lost in the hustle. Gimme the Loot was sincere and realistic in its portrayal of the neighborhoods and the characters; as a smaller film, it seemed to scale the city down as well, allowing you to focus on the characters’ small but meaningful roles in the grand scheme of a grand city.