Yay. More awesome movies.

A couple of weeks ago, I plopped down on the recliner and embarked into a double feature night with “7 Colombian Kilos” and “7 Seconds”. Wow. What an underwhelming duo. I’m not sure where to start (or WHY I should start, really.) Since I’m partial to itemized lists this evening, I’ll be orderly about this affair.

Now on to the brilliance that was “7 Colombian Kilos” with its poignant understatement of the existential struggles of cocaine dealers in Chicago. Seriously, though, not really. Even though the majority of the movie’s mighty 130 minute girth is a bore, there are little moments that shine through. I don’t think they are intentional in any way but, regardless, they leave a warm, fuzzy imprint on my psyche (If you're not familiar with my brand of sarcasm by now, you will be soon.)

Synopsis:

(May contain spoilers, but does it really matter? Who is going to watch this besides me??)

After growing up in the ghettos of Chicago, two cousins- Weecho and Leeno, deal cocaine as a team. Weecho is in charge. He talks on his phone, swears and eats take-out a lot. Leeno is the younger of the two and often gets pushed around and bad-mouthed by his cousin. Weecho’s connection in Miami wants to move him in position to be the premier cocaine dealer in the greater Chicago area. However, Weecho’s boss doesn’t know that Leeno is helping him with the business. Weecho, not wanting to mess anything up, pushes Leeno aside for a bit. The rest of the story unfolds with a disgruntled and discarded Leeno plotting revenge on Weecho for duping him out of his half of business and what he feels he deserves. All around boring as all hell.


The Bad:
-This movie looks like it was mostly shot with someone’s mid-nineties camcorder. This is forgivable if you're sitting around watching home videos with family. Not so great when watching countless one-sided cell phone calls mostly consisting of drug drops and deliveries. The colors all bleed together in grays and blues. Although this may have been an intentional artistic choice, I have my doubts.

-A good third of the movie was in Spanish with English subtitles. I do not object to reading subtitles or watching foreign films at all. However, whomever they hired to take care of the translation was jacked on coke themselves or just preferred not giving a crap about typos such as “wiht” instead of “with” and other basic silliness. This made it entertaining at first but got old fast.

-All the *@&#*$! getting in and out of cars. How many times must we watch people simply getting in and out of vehicles??????????????????????????????? I’m pretty sure there's at least 20 minutes of the movie entirely devoted to dealers/drug lords/pushers/users climbing in and out of cars. Also, another 10 minutes of the movie is reserved for entering/exiting someone’s apartment. It’s exhausting to watch. Nearly every one of these scenes could have been cut in the editing room and we would miss nothing regarding the plot or character development. There’s not much to miss.

The Good:
-The characters and settings are so amateur, gritty and low-budget that I felt like I was watching real people nabbed off the streets to do this gig. The acting was dismal but it did feel somewhat more accessible and authentic than some of the overblown Hollywood drivel that gets pushed out of the swollen anuses of ego-crazed directors (i.e. Michael Bay.)

Overall rating:
3 out of 10

So bad that it’s good rating:
(meaning it might be worth watching again out of sheer entertaining badness)
7 out of 10

***

And here comes my thoughts on the second movie of that night, “7 Seconds”. I have very little to say about this humdrum piece of action crap. Yes, Wesley Snipes is in it. Yes, this is the first movie in the action section that has a woman playing a somewhat significant role. Yes, it takes place in Bucharest, Romania. Otherwise, this movie blows serious goats. So much that I’m giving this P.O.S. a 7 second review. So there.

Overall rating:
1 out of 10

So bad that it’s good rating:
1 out of 10

Up next: “7 Kilos” and “10 Dead Men”

Psyche.