Any conversation about modern music -- and, thus, any conversation about modern movie soundtracks -- has to eventually hit on the topic of hip-hop. That's not so bad when talking about music exclusively, but it can be a minefield when talking about movies, where, with a few exceptions, the music tends to shine while the movies tend to suck. Especially when trying to establish the best of the early hip-hop films, you open up a rather ugly can of worms: do you go with Beat Street, which did such an admirable job in introducing hip-hop culture (including graf art, breakdancing and street style, not just rap music) to the masses? If so, you've picked a soundtrack that was plagued with licensing issues, multiple versions, and a rather noticeable lack of actual hip-hop. Do you select Breakin', which featured a slightly more respectable rap soundtrack, but which was, let's face it, a terrible movie? For our purposes here at the Screengrab, we've decided to go with Krush Groove.
Not that it's going to go on anyone's lists of the best movies of the 1980s. Or the best movies of 1985. Or even the best movies of 1985 involving hip-hop. Krush Groove, as a movie, is as plagued with problems as any other rap movie of its era -- namely, dismal direction and writing (by Michael Schultz and Ralph Farquhar, respectively), a plethora of bad performances, a tendency to overvalue to the musical numbers at the expense of basically everything else, and, of course, the same old 'let's put on a show' plot that served, in one variation or another, as the format for every single hip-hop movie ever until the Fat Boys discovered that it was even easier to just ape the Three Stooges, thus paving the way for the future screen careers of Method Man and Redman. Krush Groove was meant to be a loose, fictionalized adaptation of the rise of Def Jam Records, hip-hop's first mega-successful label; while there's something to be said for the verisimilitude of casting the label's executives, producers and talent as themselves, there's absolutely nothing to be said for a movie in which Russell Simmons is frequently the best actor on screen. Or, for that matter, a movie in which D.M.C. is not the worst actor on screen. While Krush Groove did the world the dubious favor of launching L.L. Cool J's acting career, it also did the world the distinct honor of failing to launch Ronald DeVoe from New Edition's acting career. But before you go and thank Mssrs. Schultz and Farquhar, keep in mind that they also put Rick Rubin in front of a camera for the first time, which, as anyone who has seen his performance as Vic Ferrante in Tougher Than Leather will tell you, is tantamount to a war crime.
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