Instead of tightening up its storyline, Waist Deep gets more outlandish with its plot complications.
Comment
06/22/06
Waist Deep (2006)
26
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:76
Fresh:20
Rotten:56
Average Rating:4.3/10
Consensus: A well-meaning B-movie that suffers from a cliche-ridden script and poorly drawn characters that fail to inspire much sympathy.
Theatrical Release:03-11-2006
Synopsis: This sun scorched, bullet-blasted South Central L.A. story follows the car- and corpse-strewn trail of an ex-con turned security guard O2 (Tyrese Gibson), who gets carjacked while his son is still... [More]
Starring: Game, Tyrese Gibson, Paul Terrel Clayton, Meagan Good
Director: Vondie Curtis-Hall
Reviews for Waist Deep
A mean and depressing B-movie in which there's no one to root for or even care about.
06/22/06
Waist Deep is unapologetically a B movie, its narrative premise placed carefully on the borderline between the wildly implausible and the completely absurd.
06/22/06
Top CriticThere are ridiculous moments in Waist Deep (the ending, a fairy-tale coda to a relentlessly grim tale, is laugh-out-loud funny). But it's also an extremely handsome film that has been made with style and energy.
06/22/06
Suffering from an extremely flawed script from which it never recovers, Deep is awesomely bad, and not in a 'Hey, I actually like Starship's "We Built this City"' way.
06/22/06
A movie that is cheerfully, indiscriminately violent, exploiting exactly the same viciously cyclical culture on which it pretends to be providing trenchant commentary.
06/22/06
No, it's not a great movie. It is, however, an interesting one, a combination of exploitative hood flick and meditation on trust and love -- thug love, romantic love and, most important, parent-child love.
06/22/06
If the daydreams of a teenager playing Grand Theft Auto could be made into a music video, the result would resemble Waist Deep.
06/22/06
While Waist Deep offers precious little that hasn't been seen before, its energy, wit, effective lead performances and taut direction save this old-fashioned B-movie...
06/22/06
Even with the movie's multiple personas, its message -- that salvation sometimes doesn't arrive in the expected form, and that escaping isn't the same thing as running away -- is delivered loud and clear.
06/22/06
What really sinks Waist Deep is the fact that the action scenes and car chases are poorly handled, and that the climactic confrontation takes place far too early, leaving the characters to lumber around for 20 minutes in a dull daze.
06/22/06
That sappy sentimentality juxtaposed with plenty of gritty gangster stuff drives both the tone and the plot of Waist Deep.
06/22/06
Doesn't have an original bullet in its chamber.
06/22/06
Hall’s heart lies not in guns and chases but in finding redemption for his city-ravaged characters.
06/22/06
At its core this movie is, despite the title, pretty shallow stuff, but compared to most example of the genre it's reasonably energetic and well-made.
06/22/06
It seemed impossible that Vondie Curtis Hall could direct a movie that‘s as bad as Glitter, but he has: Waist Deep. And Mariah Carey is nowhere in sight.
06/21/06
For all helmer Vondie Curtis Hall's aspirations to grittiness, his script (co-written by Darin Scott) is mired in a violent fantasy L.A. where the stereotypes fly almost as fast as the bullets.
06/21/06
Top CriticDirector Vondie Curtis Hall gives this virtually nonstop crime actioner, set against the mean streets of Los Angeles, pleasing noirish touches along with larger-than-life-size characters.
06/21/06
Top CriticAn embarrassing effort, at best.
06/21/06
The film's racial/class issues are less developed than Gibson's beefy, inked-up arms and its unintentional humor as consistent as its pounding soundtrack beats.
06/21/06
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