Back in the Day (2005)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The biggest problem with this movie is in real life, the niggard thugs have no conscience or regret. Whatever the film makers thought they were doing, whether they wanted to show a softer side or what, it was a farce. You know the old saying..."art imitates life"? Well if this movie were to imitate life, the bangers would shoot the brother, the sister and the mom. The good-hearted detective would never turn a banger loose for a second chance, never call and warn a banger that one of his own was out to get him and there would never be a SWAT team that saw 3 bangers with guns and only shoot one. And the salacious love scenes? I really don't know how Tia could sink this low. She is a quality actress.

A story of redemption that I found moving. Ving Rhames plays his usual gangster role well, as the evil influence. Ja Rule is Reggie - the young man torn between Godly influence and the lure of the streets. Tia Carrera plays a good supporting role, and is eye-candy besides! I didn't recognize Pam Grier, but good to see her outside the gangsta moll rut. Starting with a broken family, the youth goes through the stereotypical stages - 2 steps forward, 1 back. Joe Morton plays an honest and good preacher - itself a rarity on-screen nowadays. When a seminal and sad event occurs you can see the internal struggle going on within Reggie. The conclusion is somewhat predictable, but I like a positive movie anymore.

I watched this movie out of a lack of anything else on at the time. Quickly the movie grabbed me with the depth of the characters and subtle plot. I was quite surprised to see that the rating given by my satellite provider did not show any stars.I will not give any spoilers to the plot-line or outcome but most of the characters had at least some redeeming value. Until the very last minute I did not know how it would turn out. Frequently, you can pick-up the formula and predict a story direction. I could not do that with this film.I would recommend this as one of the finer films of this genre.

Why did I buy this movie on DVD?, Well the short answer would be: I really don't know. As for the longer version, it pretty much comes down to the fact that I genuinely like Tatyana Ali and she plays Alicia in this.Now does Tatyana Ali give a genuinely good effort in this movie? I must say that it is one of the better, and she is shaping up to be a rather decent actress. I am very much looking forward to see her in action, when better material will be available.This being said, this movie was terrible - and my score is given based on this: 1 star for not being the worst movie I've seen, 1 star for the performance of Tatyana Ali, and 1 star for not thinking that it only deserves 2 stars, there are worse movies for that.Ja Rule should stick to rapping, not my favourite rapper to say the least, but some seem to like him - and if he is contained there, I would be delighted not to see him contaminate the acting scene.Ving Rhames: Ah man, Marcellus Wallace what are you doing here - you used to be cool man. Just because Michael Caine is a fiercely brilliant actor, who has been in so many terrible flicks as well as good, you don't have to copy him Ving.The rest of the semi big names in the cast: It's OK, there are bills to be paid, and we all have to do things we're not proud of time to time.The movie itself. It so massively flawed, it's pretty difficult to know where to start. It's more like a bunch of scenes thrown in together, as were the director to say "we need to tell this, and we need to tell that". There is a story, unfortunately there is nothing surprising about or within it. To say the least, the plot changes in the story were overly obvious and it was therefore predictable what was going to happen all the time.To sum up in one word: Reallynotgood