Tyrese Gibson- O2
Meagan Good- Coco
The Game- Meat
H. Hunter Hall- Junior
Larenz Tate- Lucky
Darris Love- Rock
Directed by Vondie Curtis Hall
Screenplay by Vondie Curtis-Hall and Darin Scott, based on a story by Michael Mahern
Distributed by Focus Features and Rogue Pictures
Rated R for strong violence and pervasive language
Runtime- 97 minutes
Website: http://www.waist deep.net
"Waist Deep" stars Tyrese Gibson as "O2," a single father with a checkered past trying to make sure that his son doesn't follow in his footsteps. He tries to set a "proper" example by keeping a job, staying out of trouble, and keeping his promise that he'd never leave his son again. O2 has to leave his security guard job early (his cousin Lucky, played by Larenz Tate, is supposed to relieve him but doesn't show up) to pick up "Junior" (H. Hunter Hall) from school. O2 buys his kid a present (a very cool Buffalo Soldiers doll with a horse) and jets off to the school. Junior is waiting patiently out front. He's thankfully safe. O2 talks with his son, makes sure he's okay (the usual father son banter type stuff). Junior finds a gun in the glove compartment but his father takes it away from him immediately. It's not a toy, it's for his job, and his son should never touch a gun ever. Ever. They continue to drive. O2 is going to have to get back to work when he drops his son off. Junior falls asleep in the front seat. O2 slides his son into the back seat. Let him sleep.
O2 stops for the red light.
A woman walks up.
Coco is the woman's name (played by the very attractive Meagan Good), and selling suits on the street is her "job." She tries to get O2 to buy, but he refuses her. What a pity. She walks off. The car lurches forward. Traffic. And then everyone turns to heck. Armed thugs appear and steal O2's car with his son still in the back seat. A gunfight ensues in the middle of the street. People die in full view of hundreds of witnesses. O2 is the shooter killer. His son is still missing. He runs off to find Coco, sure that she had something to do with the carjacking (it did seem awfully convenient, didn't it? The whole will you buy a suit and then get jacked thing). She claims ignorance, but, because O2 has a big gun pointed at her face, she gives him her help. Kind of. Does she really know what's going on? Does she know why the car was taken? Why Junior was taken?
After a beat down at a car chop shop and some on-the-run hooha, O2 finds out that local criminal mastermind Meat (played by The Game) wants $100,000 in exchange for the kid. O2 has a day and a half to get the money or else. Can the single father do it? Will Coco help him (it's not like she has much else to do anyway. She's on the run from her boss. She didn't sell her wares and has no money to bring back)? Oh what the heck is going to happen?
"Waist Deep" is decent action movie that does something other recent action movies haven't done. The flick has a hero in O2 that's actually a good person. Yes, he exists in that modern "anti-hero" mold, sort of the flawed everyman, but he's also one of the few people in this world with any "honor." He isn't some scumbag jerk (like Josh Lucas in "Poseidon") out to destroy the world for his own personal gain. He's a father trying to do his best for his son. Tyrese Gibson knocks it out of the park in this movie. The role of O2 allows him to show a bit of range (sensitive father? Check. Ruthless butt kicker? Check. Lover? Check) and his natural screen charisma shines throughout. You actually believe he is this down on his luck guy. Meagan Good, "Coco," isn't quite as good as Gibson but does well nonetheless. She always seems to be scared, but not because she's "weak." She just isn't sure of what to do. She relates her "troubled" upbringing quite well, explaining how she always wanted to travel the world and how when she was a child she cut out exotic pictures from magazines and dreamed of being there even though she thought she would never get a chance to go there. Actual touching stuff. When she goes on a "robbing spree" with O2 to get the money she holds up her end and never rats him out or screws up the ongoing operation (there's a moment right after she agrees to help him where you swear she's going to run off. Watch for it). Good stuff from Miss Good.
H. Hunter Hall, O2's son, is never annoying. That's good for a child actor. The villain, "Meat" is one of the nastiest bad guys in a while. The Game is this guy, manages to inhabit this character totally. His stance, the disfigured eye, the snarl, the whole cutting people's hands off because they don't pay up enough protection money and somehow it doesn't seem out of character thing, it's all dang near perfect. Even when he eats a granola bar it's scary. It would have been great if we had a little more Meat, but what we get is good. The final confrontation is a little lacking (some razzle dazzle would have helped. Just a little. We don't need kung fun wire work here, just a little more butt kicking). More good stuff.
The city of Los Angeles, a city in the midst of large public outrage over gang violence, seems fresh and not like the "LA" we've seen in other movies using the city as a setting. Vondie Curtis-Hall, the director, manages to make "L.A" both a beautiful place and a scary one. With massive public demonstrations, citizen strife, and carjackings all happening at the same time, none of it ever seems contrived. The soundtrack, chock full of catchy hip hop, manages to help set the mood of the setting and the characters and never feels like it's there for the sake of being there. This reviewer isn't a fan of using non-instrumental music for movie music, but here it works. Even more good stuff.
There are a few questions, though. One, it doesn't seem plausible that the police, likely under new intense pressure from the city government to crackdown on street violence and gang activity, would just bumble around while they have video of O2 running around shooting people. You'd think they'd have the city under a tight blanket. Second, 02 and Coco, in the course of their robberies, manage to bound and gag and leave behind several people who, as the settings suggest, will never be found by anyone until they all choke on their own vomit or die from dehydration (L.A looks like it's hotter than heck here). If O2 doesn't want to hurt anyone and is worried about slipping back into his old ways to the point where he can't leave them again, why essentially kill these people? Of course, what he's done isn't necessarily lethal (it's not shooting people in the head or cutting their hands off), it's just questionable. And third, even under a parole job thing, why would any entity allow a former gang member have a gun at a job? Just a few questions.
"Waist Deep" could have been a disaster. It could have been a hip and edgy borefest full of fake macho hooha and stupidity (like "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift"). The previews this reviewer saw seemed to suggest that that was what we were going to get. Thankfully, we instead got a movie with a hero. It's about dang time.
And a movie that features a voice cameo by Michael Eric Dyson can't be all that bad.
Go see it. You'll like it.
The 411: “Waist Deep” is an action movie about a father looking for his kidnapped son. Yes, we’ve seen it before, but not like this. Tyrese Gibson, Meagan Good, and The Game perform amazingly well, inhabiting their roles fully and helping director Vondie Curtis-Hall make a movie that isn’t the typical action movie disaster we’ve been suffering through the past while. Give it a chance and you’ll be surprised.
