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.
