Shottas, a
Jamaican-set underworld flick executive produced by musician Wyclef Jean, is proof that a movie can at least on some
level come across as authentic, and yet still generate no real sympathy for its
characters or deep involvement in its narrative.

Written and directed by debut filmmaker Cess Silvera, Shottas is in some regards similar to
Frank E. Flowers’ recent Haven, which
was set in the Cayman Islands and also focused at least
partially on drug-slinging, gangland n’er-do-wells. Both are films rooted
considerably in atmospherics and setting, and whose chief selling points or
thrust of interest stems from their perceived genuineness as locally shot
articles. While Haven had more than
its share of problems, they were shortcomings of overreach and artifice
compared to Shottas, which traffics
exclusively in recognizable formulas and brings nothing new to the table in
terms of either execution or depth of character.

The film opens in Kingston, Jamaica,
1978, with two young, prepubescent friends skipping school and barely skirting
trouble. Looking admiringly upon the local gangsters — for whom the movie’s
title is slang — they do as they see, and manage to grab enough money to
purchase visas to take them to a better life in the United
States.

Cut to several decades and a few busted and waylaid dreams
later. Hustling drugs in Miami
proved quite lucrative for Biggs (Kymani Marley, above left), but he’s been deported back
to Jamaica, and
views it sullenly, as a sort of gangland demotion back to the kiddie pool.
There, though, he reconnects with his childhood pal Wayne (Spragga Benz), who
convinces him that together they can live even larger. Their extortion of local
businesses — abetted by an alliance with police commissioner Mr. Anderson
(Munair Zacca) — blows up in their face after they murder a man in broad
daylight, and a group of officers exact revenge by killing Wayne’s brother.

With the body count growing and the political pressure
rising, Wayne and Biggs accept visas to go back to the United
States, where they immediately make moves on
a former associate of the latter, seizing his territory and business. Predictably,
more bloodshed ensues, though not before each guy has had the opportunity to
buy some nice jewelry and hook up with a big-breasted, two-dimensional
gold-digger.

All the tough guy talk, political corruption, criminal
maneuvering and flossy, drug-runner lifestyle stuff are bits we’ve seen
countless times before, from Narc, Carlito’s Way, Goodfellas, Dirty and The Departed all the way back to Scarface and Mean Streets, as well as any number of straight-to-video urban
flicks who’ve found their inspiration in the same. On a purely base, budgetary
level, of course, Shottas can’t run
with most of those films, but it doesn’t even have the dignity of penetrating
characters, and once it moves back to the United
States it loses any sense of distinctive
personality. There, the movie heartily falls back on one of the laziest clichés
of screen violence, depicting its carnage either in fetishistic slow-motion or
indiscriminate, squib-happy bursts — both signs of a clear lack of directorial
vision.

Still, there are a few positives. Silvera elicits
naturalistic adolescent performances (from Carlton Grant, Jr. and son J.R.
Silvera) during the set-up of Wayne
and Biggs’ camaraderie and, early on, trades in metaphor-rich frames that are
entirely missing in the movie’s second and third acts. If red is the color of
passion, it’s also the color of mortality, and Biggs and Wayne’s bloody future
is foreshadowed in scenes dotted with menacing splashes of red — a deliveryman’s
truck, the local hood who becomes the duo’s first mark, and even Biggs’ de
facto outfit, a ripped Winnie the Pooh T-shirt. So there’s that. Oh, and thanks to the subtitles of the
heavily accented film, I can now curse in Jamaican.

Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, Shottas benefits from a fairly solid
video transfer with rich and consistent colors and very little grain, and also
comes with a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track. The DVD is being released as a two-disc special edition, and touts an extended cut of the movie, a multi-part making-of documentary and a “Shottas for Life” featurette. The single-disc review version I received, however, included only the set’s other supplemental features — namely a cursory, 90-second introduction to the film by Silvera and Marley; an innovative “Shottas dictionary,” featuring definitions for the slang in the movie (and links directly to clips where it’s used, a nice touch); and a boisterous, party-fueled group audio commentary track which eventually comes off as misogynistic and crass. Still, it’s loaded with loads of nice production detail, as when Silvera and Marley point out the shot in which he broke his finger while diving over a couch in a staged shootout. Actually, Silvera sits for a solo commentary track as well, and amusingly points out a scene where a car doesn’t start for some robbers, and they take off on foot. The rub? The car really broke down, and the actors’ response was spontaneous and uncut. C- (Movie) B+ (Disc, speculatively)