Money Power Respect (2006)

What makes it different from others?

one of my absolute favorites!

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I don't care who says what, I like this movie. I'm from the inner-city and this story is a mirror reflection on my experience, not with all the killing but the same pressures. The acting was amateur, but it really kept my interest. I also listened to the director's commentary. It is the director's first film, he shot it trying with some friends in two weeks and got a distribution deal. That's cool. I'm almost jealous. It makes me want go out and do something with my movie ideas. I hope he keeps it up despite some of the "nay sayers". African-American film makers are a so few and far between, someone has to tell our stories. I thing there's a spot somewhere in Tinsel Town for him.

Garbage pretty much sums the film up... The director seems to have put a lot of bad actors together in a bad script, (which is all one long bad cliché.) A lot of the dialogue is just not believable coming out of certain actors mouths. One example, after the drug dealer is robbed by Levi and Drew on their first job together he all of a sudden becomes a wise philosopher and utters "what goes up must come down..." before he gets stomped and shot by Drew. All said this a great movie for any aspiring filmmaker to watch. There is a lot to be gained from watching this as far as what not to when you have a DV camera and are shooting a film with mainly friends. The director, Jamal Hill seemed to be the only viable actor in the whole movie he's definitely better in front of the camera than behind it. His camera technique and shot selection were a bit lazy and uncourageous. Too much tripod and not enough hand-held. All in all the screenplay should've been re-written and edited a lot more and the director should've taken better care in the casting aspect of pre-production. It would have helped the film ten-fold. The story itself has been told a million times in films. From Scarface to every bad 'Hood'or 'ghetto' B movie ever created. In the commentary the director mentions he had a 10,000$ budget amazing how so much money could be wasted in such little time. It was amazing however how the director could push such bad material into an hour and forty minutes. Bottom-Line if you want to make movies and are young and inexperienced this is a very good bad film otherwise stay away, unless you like to watch garbage.

LOOKING FORWARD TO FUTURE PROJECTS FROM THIS WRITER/DIRECTOR!!! I'm an AD, Camera Operator and Editor who has worked on many independent low budget productions from NYC to LA. Let me tell you, it is HARD to make things happen if you are just starting out! I was in Philly visiting a friend when I heard about the P.U.M.P. festival, where Money Power and Respect won Best Feature. I gotta say I was not looking forward to sitting through yet another low budget DV film. Generally speaking, the casts are amateur, the scripts are terrible and the shooting is really awful. They're often just made for a quick buck.I saw Money Power and Respect and was very happy I stayed. It was not a 'ghetto mess' as I expected. What shines the brightest, I think, is the writing. The characters come across as real people, the young thugs on the rise to 'Scarface-esque' success have their own personalities and outlooks, rather than being one dimensional as they are in many low budget scripts. Also, hats off to the director, J. Hill, who wrote, directed, produced and co-starred as the sophisticated drug dealer Juan. It must have been a ridiculous challenge to wear all of those hats and get the project off the ground.If you are a filmmaker or a writer who has dealt with the frustration of trying to make a SHORT FILM, let alone a FEATURE get off the ground in a minor city (i.e. not LA or NYC), you will appreciate this film.Hell, you'll be inspired to write and locally produce your own scripts, or friends scripts -- because this film was made cheap and has been DISTRIBUTED in Best Buy and Tower and other outlets.The bottom line is, before you can caught up in what the haters have to say -- keep a close eye on young talent like J. Hill. The buzz in Philly is that he has a new project with Lil Zane and Sundy Carter that will be coming out soon, and that will certainly catch the eye of other industry folks who will be looking to throw in some serious loot for future projects. In my experience, having seen many folks come and go, this is a solid debut from a writer/director who has a future in the business.I'm rating this film 7 out of 10 NOT because I think it stands up next to big budget films that I think are 7s out of 10 (like Con Air, Fast and the Furious or, in a different genre, the recent The Breakup with Vince Vaughn) but because it is a very solid debut DV film that outshines many of it's competitors.

I watch a lot of low budget indie films. Sometimes you see a film that despite its modest budget is able to tell a story and entertain. This film however is not one of them. The film suffers from terrible sound, bad photography and bad editing. The sound is so poor that about a third of the film is incomprehensible. Many films shot on DV can display an adequate image. This film has every scene shown with a very high noise level; even the daylight shots! On the commentary track the DP brags that the night scenes were shot without lights. Well that explains why the actors look like moving shadows. At night you at least need to back-light actors to differentiate them from the background.A competent director can work around technical issues and concentrate on acting blocking and coverage. The director appears to have given no thought on blocking. There are several scenes, such as when Levi visits his mother and little brother, where the actors are standing in front of one another and you can't see who is even talking! The acting is poor across the board and the director has decided to place the camera in a single position for an entire scene.