Baby Gangster (2014) User Reviews

Let Down By The Need For Self Justification

[Theo Robertson · 6/10 · 28 April 2014]

I see Bob Da Moo has beat me to punch in reviewing this short documentary about gang culture in da ghetto of Compton in Los Angeles . Da moo is the blackest white guy I've ever known so maximum respect he's done a little research in finding out BABY GANGSTER is made by a British film maker called Luke Monaghan . The documentary does have that Eurocentric outsider view of inner city life in America where everyone is a little bit overweight , they're obsessed with cars , they live in houses that have bars on the windows and they're stuck between a rock and a hard place . The rock being joining a gang where being shot dead is a possibility and being sent to jail for a very long time is a probability and the hard place being not joining a gang and living an life long existence of no status and soul crushing poverty . Sometimes you really are proud to be British

One wonders if it's down to life experience or simply if it's down to the ageing process but these type of homies like Staves constantly lament their own wasted lives of gang culture . I've got to be brutally honest and say there's a little bit too much in the way of self justification coming from Staves . He does correctly confess to his motives of " making thirty thousand dollars in an hour and all the p*ssy I could get " which shows the clear appeal of gangster culture but then shoots himself in the foot somewhat by claiming " I didn't know the damage crack cocaine was doing to my community " Hmmmm . If he claimed that he knew the damage he was causing but didn't really care then that might have struck me as being more instinctively honest . Like so many other erstwhile gangsters who claim " we didn't hurt women and kids , we stuck to our own it was business etc " Staves feels the need to mention that shooting people on street corners in drive bys is valid but shooting people in their homes in front of their family is a step too far . My life is so much enlightened in knowing that back in the good old days gangsters had morals unlike today

BABY GANGSTERS does work to the effect that it's short and to the point . It doesn't totally deglamourize and deconstruct gang culture because the camera does lovingly linger on cars and if there's such a thing as " car porn " this might be the definitive documentary . It does also play up to the stereotypical gangster speak from the ghetto but despite the somewhat self justification by a gangster for his former criminal lifestyle it does make the point that crime doesn't pay in the long run .

Cool and slick with an engaging subject but, unlike the cars, there is really nothing under this slick paintjob

[bob the moo · 23 April 2014]

With a score from A$AP Rocky and a lot of cool shots from director Monaghan of things related to gang culture, this film is probably going to be very popular – helped by it being produced and distributed by Nowness. All of these things it does well and we get a very cool black and white tour through the aspects of gang culture of low-riding and also some discussion of the former drug game which our subject Fredrick James Staves used to head up. With a score from A$AP Rocky we have plenty of slow-motion cool shots of cars, of people posing with tattoos, those familiar houses and so on. It all looks cool and to the casual viewer who is outside of this world and culture, it is quite alluring.

The problem is that it also seems to have been alluring to British director Monaghan and several times the film just contents itself to look on in glossy admiration, giving the film a sense of superficiality. Luckily for the film Staves is a big presence and big character; we hear him talk about getting busted, about his personal ethics when it comes to murdering someone (never in front of family apparently – which is why he is still upset about being arrested in front of his son), and about his regrets. We also see him at work in his garage where a meeting shows he is still very much the character who ran the streets, even if he now only runs a garage (it is not clear in the film what the subject of the meeting is, so maybe he was just being a drama queen?!). Staves holds the eye and ear and it is very easy to give him (and the film) your attention when he is talking. Again though the problem is that the film is too taken by this cool man and his cool story and his cool cars, so it really never goes anywhere with him. Yes we get some regrets spoken of but they are very glib and starkly in contrast with the light in Staves eyes when he speaks on the old days of running on the streets. I can understand why the film struggles because I too could have listened to Staves' stories for ages and never once push him on the reality of what he was doing.

Baby Gangster is a very slickly packaged film with good cinematography, an engaging and lively subject and additional cool points brought in by A$AP Rocky; problem is that all of this adds up to a cool and superficial "video of the day" rather than something of lasting interesting and substance and it is a shame that it really didn't make more of the potential.