Geekvice: May 2017

Sleight

Surprisingly, the film production cards at the front of the movie announce this as a WWE Studios joint. That immediately lowers my opinion. We'll see how this goes.

The movie opens in LA, but not the glitzy part of LA, more the 'affordable tract housing' part of LA. We are introduced to the main character, Bo, through a voicemail voiceover from a teacher of his. Between that and the floating tour we take around Bo's house, we can surmise that he has a sister named Tina, and his mother has recently died. Bo has evidently also earned a scholarship.

One year later, Bo is doing card tricks and sleight of hand tricks on street corners for cash as a street magician. Most of his tricks seem neat, but are pedestrian in nature. All except for one of his tricks, where he somehow levitates and spins a jewelry ring, inviting a random girl to grab it from the air, which she does. She's pretty impressed by this, but right as he starts to make conversation with her, his sister Tina walks up, done with school for the day, and she and Bo head home.

At home, we see a mounting pile of unpaid, past due medical bills addressed to Bo's mom. This never comes up again. Later, we see that Bo has implanted a copper-core magnetic inductor in to his bicep with subcutaneous wires running down his arm. It looks pretty fuckin' uncomfortable, and kind of infected, but apparently that's how he levitates the ring. God damn if that isn't commitment.

As Bo heads out to is second job, a night job, he runs in to his neighbor, Georgie, the gal next door. She apparently helps Bo out in caring for Tina, and will do so again tonight. We eventually see that Bo's night job is a cliched slinging drugs. One of his stops is a club that buys for musical acts it books, which will become important later. While Bo's making his rounds, we also see that he's trig enough to be able to use his sleight of hand to hide his stash from cops during a Terry Stop, so he's go that going for himself.

Eventually, Bo needs to hit up his plug, Angelo, to turn in his rounds and get resupplied. Angelo works out of his house, which to my mind introduces all sorts of logistical issues with the drug trade, but whatever. Angelo tells Bo that he's heard rumors of a new supplier in town, and asks Bo to keep his ear to the ground about it.

A few days later, at a shitty techno club, Bo is doing just that, and sees someone else slinging in one of his regular spots. He asks the dude if he can buy from him, but dude standoffishly denies that he's slinging, and tries to get tough with Bo. When he does, Bo pickpockets dude's phone and disengages. From this, he determines that the new supplier's name is Maurice. At least, some people call him (others call him The Gangster of Love). He relays this info to Angelo, and goes about his business.

Later, Bo is out to coffee with Holly, the random girl who was extremely impressed with his levitating ring earlier. Evidently she tipped him her phone number. While they're getting to know each other, Angelo calls Bo up and tells him we're riding on Maurice. Bo splits the coffee date and goes over to Angelo's house.

Angelo lines out his plan to rough Maurice up, but Bo doesn't look so sure about his life choices right about the time one of Angelo's other boys tosses him a janky snub-nose .38 Special revolver. Regardless, Bo goes along for the ride.

They arrive at Maurice's uh, lair, I suppose, which is a dilapidated warehouse with a poker table set up inside. Angelo's crew bust in and clear the building, with Bo almost getting taken out by one of Maurice's braver subordinates. Angelo tries to have a sit down with Maurice, offering him the license to deal in Angelo's territory for 30% of Maurice's take. Maurice rejects this offer out of hand, and is kind of a dick about it, so Angelo beats the ever-loving shit out of him. He then gives him the ultimatum of dealing for Angelo or GTFO'ing.

Back at home, Bo is kind of freaked out by the night's events, so he talks it over with his neighbor Georgie. Bo and her come to the conclusion that this has turned in to something Bo would never have signed up for, and he needs to get out.

A few nights later, Holly comes over to Bo's house for dinner, and Georgie helps him out with the cooking and such. They sit down for a nice family and friends dinner, and are having a good time when Angelo stops by. He chides Bo for not answering his phone, and for not inviting Angelo for family supper. Regardless, Angelo pulls Bo outside and tells him that Maurice hasn't stopped dealing in their territory, so they need to teach him another lesson. Right. The. Fuck. Now.

Bo reluctantly jumps in Angelo's ride with the rest of the crew, and they set off to find Maurice. They locate him outside a club with a girl that he's busy deingrating. They abduct him, leaving the girl behind, and take him to Angelo's house. There, they pull out a tarp and a meat cleaver, stretching out Maurice on the tarp. Maurice pleads for reason to take the day, but Angelo's having none of it. He hands Bo the cleaver and tells him to take Maurice's hand. Bo doesn't want to, but Angelo puts a literal gun to his head and coerces him to do it. Reluctantly Bo winds up and takes a swing. Unfortunately for everyone, he doesn't make it through cleanly, and has to take a few more whacks. Eventually, he makes it through, and then promptly runs outside and throws up.

Angelo meets him outside, and drives the blood-spattered Bo home. Quick side-note, for all the people that are shown to be coming in and out of Angelo's house, there's NEVER any other car outside except Angelo's. Are all these other motherfuckers just Ubering everywhere? Anyway, as Angelo drops Bo off, he gives him an entire kilo of coke to sell.

Bo goes in the house, and Holly evidently decided to stay, as she's curled up asleep on his couch. He doffs his blood soaked clothes, and tells Holly (who doesn't see or comment on his bloody clothes) she can take his bed, he'll sleep on the couch. She counters with the line of logic that they can sleep in the same bed, so Alright, Alright, Alright.

Wait, it's not Alright. As Holly changes for bed, Bo sees that she's got a shit-ton of bruises all over her body. That kind of kills any thoughts of sexytime, but they cuddle up and keep it PG-13.

The next day, Bo lays out his slinging supplies. He's stepped on the kilo Angelo gave him, turning it in to two keys. By his calculations, he can sling it all, pay Angelo back, and still have $15k left. Boy does 2 kilos of coke break down in to a LOT of little baggies, so Bo gets to moving them.

Later, Holly comes over, upset as shit, and with a black eye. She tells Bo that her mom beats her when she gets drunk. Hey, it's 2017, so i suppose we can have gender equality when it comes to abusive parents. They have a tender moment, and then get to the fukkin'.

In the morning, Holly wakes up before Bo and sees his magnetic inductor he implanted in his arm. She rightfully asks what the fuck he was thinking, so he tells her a story about the time he saw a magician perform on the Boardwalk when he was little. He did some neat but pedestrian tricks, but his big one was putting a knife through his hand. A real knife. After his mom died, he ran in to the same magician, still performing on the Boardwalk. He chatted him up, and got him to divulge his secret about the knife trick to him. The secret was that it wasn't a trick. The magician had painstakingly cut a hole through his hand over the years, until he had a hole clean through his hand. Then, when it came time to perform, he simply put a bit of latex skin over the hole, and did the trick. Bo's takeaway from this was that doing regular tricks any old asshole can do isn't magic, doing something nobody else can is magic. I question that assertion, as that dude spent years doing street magic on the Boardwalk, never making it anywhere. Bo ends the story with the assertion that if he had more power for the magnet, he could do a bigger effect.

Eventually Angelo finds out that Bo cut his product without telling him, and assumes he was intending to keep the extra income. He demands Bo give him the original, intended $15k, the additional $15k from the extra sales, and an extra $15k for asshole tax. And he wants it in a week, or he'll kill everyone Bo loves.

Bo realizes he's in over his head and completely fucked, so he comes clean to Holly about his dealing. She is surprisingly not angry about him lying about that shit, and tells him she'll help him pay off his debt to Angelo.

We're then treated to an inspirational '80's-style montage of Bo slinging like a madman. At the end of the montage, Bo has only made $35,914. This is significantly short of the target $45,000, so Holly kicks in $900 she's saved. Mathematically, this is still not $45,000, but it's a sweet gesture.

Sunday comes, and, deciding he's fucked no matter what, Bo takes Holly and Tina out to an arcade for one last good time, using his magnetic inductor to help Tina win some games. While there, he decides he's not licked yet, and has one more play to make.

He leaves them at the arcade and takes a delivery to the club he delivered to earlier in the movie. While there, he takes advantage of the trust the club manager has for him, slips in to the club office, and robs the safe, presumably taking more than $10k. Unfortunately, as he's leaving, he's spotted by Maurice's crew who chases and catches him. They knock him out, cuff him, throw him in a car trunk and take him to Maurice's Honeycomb Hideout.

Once there, they prepare to maim Bo in the same fashion he maimed Maurice. Bo wakes up, unattended in the truck, and still cuffed. He uses his magnet to open the handcuffs and the trunk, and makes his escape, with Maurice's crew none the wiser.

Bo makes his way home, and we see Angelo and crew break in to Bo's house and bust shit up. But Shamalyan! Bo's next door at Georgie's house with Tina. After Angelo tires himself out, he calls Bo and tells him he wants an ADDITIONAL $15,000, bringing the total owed to $60,000.

Holly comes over and comforts him. She tells Bo that he should run, and take her with him. Bo asks where they'd go, and she says she doesn't care. At the same time, Angelo abducts Tina from school. In this day and age, I would imagine it'd be difficult for a stranger to do that, but fuck it, we'll roll with it.

Out of options, Bo goes to see his old high school teacher - the teacher that left the condolence voicemail that opened the movie. They chat and talk about life, and Bo eventually tells him he's in trouble, and shows him the magnetic inductor in his arm. His teacher freaks out momentarily, but then decides that it's pretty cool, and examines it. Bo tells him he needs more power for it, so his teacher suggests hooking in a feedback oscillator (essentially an amplifier for electrical current). They go in to the teacher's workshop, and rig up an oscillator and TWO car batteries. Now, Bo is not a big lad by any means, and even small car batteries weight upward of 45 pounds each. So that's about 90 pounds that he's hooked up to the system in his arm, which he loads in to his backpack. That's one hell of a backpack, and, again, a lot of weight for a lad of his size to sling around. Anyway, they take it outside and try it on the teacher's car, and it works like gangbusters, dragging Bo toward the car.

Now powered up, Bo gets a ride over to Angelo's house from Holly, and tells her that if he isn't out in 15 minutes, to drive away and don't look back.

Bo busts in, and Angelo's crew having a bit of a soirée, complete with Columbian marching powder and plenty of booze. He rips gold teeth out of one of the dude's mouth using his magnet. Gold isn't ferrous, so that must be one helluva magnet. Another dude comes at him with an aluminum bat, which he stops mid-swing with his magnet, and then throws with his magnet, embedding it in a wall. Aluminum also is not ferrous, so that must REALLY be one helluva magnet. He then roars over the music for everyone to get out, and they promptly do, because a man just ripped teeth out of another man's mouth and stopped and threw a bat mid-air, all seemingly by magic. During all this, Bo seems fairly fuckin' spry with those batteries on his back.

Angelo comes out to see what all the commotion is about, and sees Bo. He pulls his gun and empties it at Bo. Bo stops the slugs mid-air (the FIRST ferrous metal he interacts with here), and drops them to the ground. While the lead slugs are indeed ferrous, it would still take a TREMENDOUS amount of magnetic force to stop them mid-air. Anyway, Bo picks up one of the slugs and magnetically throws it at Angelo, slowly boring it in to his forehead. Bo pushes his magnet so hard the house shakes until Angelo tells him that Tina is staying with Angelo's auntie, and is safe. He throws Angelo the original $15,000 he was owned and walks out.

Outside, Bo gets in Holly's car, revealing severe burns to his arm from the excessive current running through his magnet. He gets Tina without incident, and they all have a healthy cry in the car.

Some time later, we see that Bo, Holly and Tina have set up a new life in San Diego. Holly's going to college, Tina's going to school and Bo's performing street magic. They seem to have a nice family dynamic set up, and all seem to be happy.

In the middle of the night, Holly wakes up to find Bo's side of the bed empty. She wanders through the house looking for Bo, eventually ending up at the door to his workshop. She opens the door, and we see lots of pulsing lights reflecting on her, and many humming, whirring noises happening. She looks awed and amazed, and says, "Oh...my...God...," before the screen smash cuts to black and the movie ends. So we don't see what his new trick is, but I inferred that its some fashion of him levitating off the ground or something along those lines.

Pretty solid movie overall, despite the initial cliches.

5/5 Ghetto Iron Mans.

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Norm Reviews Sleight

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