Tip Harris – Rashad
Lauren London – New-New
Evan Ross - Ant
Keith David – John Garnett
Jackie Long – Esquire
Albert Daniels - Brooklyn
Mykelti Williamson – Uncle George
Antwan Andre Patton (aka Big Boi) – Marcus
Warner Bros presents a film directed by Chris Robinson. Screenplay by Tina Gordon Chism. Story by Antwone Fisher. Runtime 106 minutes. Rated PG-13 for drug content, language, sexual material and some violence.
Chris Robinson seemed to have everything going against him when he took on ATL, and it's all MTV's fault. Robinson is a former music video director and ATL is a drama about urban youth and the drug business in Atlanta.
You can see why it would be easy to write the picture off. If MTV has taught us anything, it has taught us that (1) the music video director job description reads "shoot skimpy, soaking wet women and rappers in fancy car," and (2) if you sell drugs you can ride around in fancy cars with skimpy, soaking wet women. So you can understand what I was expecting with ATL: Skimpy women and fancy cars.
And yes, there are cars, and yes, there are some beautiful women, but there is more to this picture than some bizarre notion of the American dream being dealing drugs and get rich quick schemes. Instead, Robinson treats this story with a level head.
The story belongs to a pair of brothers, 17-year-old Rashad (Tip Harris) and 14-year-old Ant (Evan Ross). Their parents have passed away, leaving them in the care of their uncle George (Mykelti Williamson). George is a single 41-year-old janitor (try getting anywhere with that description in your eHarmony ad) and doesn't really want to be responsible for his nephews. No worries, though, as Rashad is the responsible one. Rashad is the type of guy who works a menial job to save up for his little brother's education. His little brother, though, wants the women in the skimpy clothes and the big, fancy cars. He begins work for a drug dealer at the bottom of the food chain.
Like any young lad Rashad has a good group of friends: Esquire, Teddy and Brooklyn. Esquire is the bright one, Teddy is the drop out who is getting by, and Brooklyn is from, you guessed it, New York. They do typical youthful activities, including chasing ladies and rollerskating at the local rink. Okay, maybe the last part is a youthful activity in the 1980s, but the sequences where the four guys strut their stuff are good fun.
Along the way Ant gets into trouble, and Rashad gets a girlfriend. The third act hits and things end up where you would expect them to end up. But the fun of ATL is getting there. Somehow a music video director has managed to make a film that chooses to portray urbanized youth in a realistic way. Ant wants the flashy life you see in the 50 Cent videos, but his job as gofer is anything but. The boys and their problems are more touching and believable when they're put in this context.
The 411: ATL ends up where you expect it to, but that doesn’t mean the ride to the third act doesn’t work. There are a lot of bad coming of age dramas about urban youth. This is not one of them, because Robinson doesn’t copy the weird values from the world of rap music videos. ATL is not the best movie ever made, but it is a very solid effort nonetheless.
