Urban Menace

This movie could not have been made in more than three days. And by that I mean everything, from the scriptwriting to the filming, to the editing. There truly is no discernible plot to this; the idea seems to be that people would go see it just because of the all-star cast of rappers. Want a master class in brain-dead, pointless dialogue? Look no further. Same goes for those looking to decrease their acting skills. Finding out that this movie is 75 minutes long was a shock; while watching it, it felt as if it were as long as Titanic or Gone with the Wind. As a side note, I don't think Big Pun or Fat Joe stand up once during the whole movie; must have been in their contract or something. Too horrible to even be funny.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the worst film EVER made. I am not exaggerating, it is not like Showgirls or Virus bad, it is a whole new low. It was only released 'cause Ice T and co. had the money from being successful rappers to finance it itself. I do media and film studies, and we had to make the introduction to a thriller. Compared to this film, every single groups work looked like Usual Suspects or Momento, and it was the first time most of us had used any camera or editing equipment, or had ever storyboarded, written a script, or had any involvement in a film. I'm saying this carefully 'cause I don't want you to think I'm exaggerating how bad it is. The storyline is pitiful and makes no sense at all. The special effects are laughable, and I don't mean that they're low budget but they did what they could with them, they were actually the worst I've ever seen (like pitifully super imposed shots of flames when a building is supposed to be on fire). Instead of choosing actors, they chose rappers to play the parts of characters (snoop dogg himself has since acted well in a few films, but Fat Joe and Big Pun show they're complete and absolute lack of talent, as do the rest of the cast). There is absolutely nothing good about this film. I still feel like I'm not quite stating enough how bad it is, 'cause I've seen so many terrible and laughable films, but this is on a whole new level to anything I have ever seen. I am a big hip hop fan, and therefore have a certain amount of respect for Ice T and a lot of respect for Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe and Big Pun (RIP), but this should never have been made, and if you manage to get hold of a copy i urge you to burn it and therefore erase it from history, so there is no chance of anyone in the future seeing it and knowing that such disgustingly embarrassing things existed in our time.

that unfortunately thinks it's a serious film. This is quite simply the most incoherent piece of nonsense ever to come to DVD. No I'm not going to call it a film because it isn't one as it was shot on digital video and has a look which resembles video captured from a digital camera with Pyun's trademark blue filter. In all honesty though, it's not as unwatchable as Crazy Six and the dialogue, the acting, the editing and the fact that you'll probably have no clue as to what is going on makes this absolutely hilarious to watch, especially with the commentary track.

What this video (not, it's not a film) resembles is a home video of a bunch of idiots running around an empty building with paintball guns pretending to be gangsta and going completely over the top with their dialogue and using the f word at the end of every second word. I had no idea who was the good guys or who was the bad guys, if there were any good guys that is. The acting is hilarious, especially Big Pun's mumbling and fact that he's obviously reading off cue cards behind camera. This is one of the worst performances I've ever seen, rivalling only Anna Nicole Smith in Skyscraper and Mario Van Peebles in Exterminator 2. A good 80% of the dialogue consists of the words "f*ck", "motherf*cker" and "n*gger".

Probably the funniest thing is that Albert Pyun comes completely clean about how bad this video is in the commentary. He admits that several members of the cast never met and were edited together to make it look like they were in conversation which is funny, because that is exactly what it looks like. Something which I have suspected he has done in several of his films. He also admits that one of the characters running around in black is actually Snoop Dogg's stunt double and not him, which is necessary if for a second you thought of trying to make the tiniest bit of sense out of this nonsense, because I had no idea this was even meant to be him as it could quite easily have been one of the many gang members. Snoop Dogg was only there for a limited amount of time, he also tells us in case we hadn't already guessed that. Being the first billed character, his face only flashes on and off a few times and then appears at the end, and his stunt double fills in for the rest and believe me, if you don't listen to the commentary you probably won't even realize that the stunt double is supposed to be him. He also tells us that several scenes were the same corridors we saw earlier, just with all the factory mess rearranged and shot in the opposite direction which is exactly what it looks like!

There's also plenty of continuity errors. Such as how did this preacher become so skilled with weapons? In one scene he takes out what I counted to be 17 people in a corridor and apparently has eyes on the back of his head. While viewing it I noticed that one of them even collapses without being shot at in the sea of falling bodies. I could go on and on but it would take all day, so for now I'll just point out the church with the laughable CGI flames!

If you like seeing "filmmaking" at the very bottom end of the spectrum then I seriously recommend you to check out this. Honestly, if enough people see this I think it could be come a Grade Z classic in the future, it has all the makings of it. This video is a joke, nothing more, nothing less and if you have a sense of humour, then this DVD is a lot of fun! There is just simply no way to take this seriously, and the fact that those involved seem quite unaware of it only adds to it.

Oh, and there's a "Disclaimer" from Ice-T at the start but don't worry, much of the stuff he says in that doesn't even happen in the fi…sorry video!

This is the worst film I've ever seen. I rented this hoping for one of those "hilariously cr@p movie experiences" (Plan 9, Anaconda, Congo), but this isn't even watchable. Even hip-hop fans should steer clear of this for fear of seeing your favourite stars in a different light - a big, glaring, filtered light making them look as if someone's shining a spotlight on their foreheads.

Why's it so bad? The talking vacuum cleaner Fat Joe's heaving bulk; the terrible performances from the other actors; the god-awful lighting and filtering; the boring, BORING, BOOOOOORING story; and about a million other things.

In fact, from the looks of "The Wrecking Crew", this was made at the same time, in the same place, with the same crew (same writer, director, assistant director, producers, cinematographer, editor, cameraman... you get the idea), which is just laughable. The 1999 positive comment "[Filmwerks] know their target market and plays incredibly well to it" was surely one of the blurbs rejected for the back of the box for lack of believability. Avoid.

I bought this film on a double DVD with The Wrecking Crew for only one pound, so it's not like I broke the bank to buy it. Sadly this dosen't mean it wasn't a waste of money. When I saw the DVD I was really excited about the prospect of a film with not one but four high end rappers in it. I started the DVD and within minutes it became clear that this was possibly one of the worst pieces of cinema ever created. Not bad in a poorly scripted rom-com sort of way, but bad in a "could have been made by a child with their dad's camcorder sort of way. The camera work, scene direction and script make You've Been Framed look like a compilation of cinematic masterpieces. If I was ever to meet Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe or Ice T I would have to ask them why they decided to release the film despite the offence it has so clearly caused to hundreds. In defence of the film they did lose most of the final film reels on route back from Russia, so there's probably an person in France laughing as they watch the version of Urban Menace we were all meant to see. Until that comes to light please avoid this film like the plague and if you have to see it don't say I didn't warn you.