October 24, 2001
By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
"Bones"
**1/2
Jimmy Bones Snoop Dogg
Pearl Pam Grier
Lupovich Michael T. Weiss
New Line Cinema presents a film directed by Ernest Dickerson.
Written by Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe.
Running time: 98 minutes.
Rated R (for violence/gore, language, sexuality, brief nudity, drugs)
Opening today at local theaters.
"This is the story of Jimmy Bones
Black as night and hard as stone
Gold-plated deuce like the King of Siam
Got a switchblade loose and a diamond on his hand
They took his life, he never rested in peace
Now his vengeance will be unleashed."
Patrick Peet grew up listening
to that neighborhood rhyme. His father had been friends with Jimmy Bones--a
charismatic man who kept drugs out of the neighborhood and always had money
for those who needed shelter and food. After Bones was killed in 1979,
he became a legend. But his old brownstone was left to decay.
Flash forward 22 years:
Patrick is now a young man who purchases the brownstone with plans to turn
it into a nightclub. Never mind that it's a rat hole and there's no way
anyone could get it ready to open in a week. As he points out, "I got a
really good deal on this place."
His father, who moved his
family out to the suburbs many years ago, is furious that his son would
return to their ghetto not-so-fabulous roots. He warns Patrick that "no
one will come to this neighborhood--dance club or not."
Oh, you'd be surprised.
As in most horror films, there are enough gutsy kids who think they'll
live forever, and in this case, supply plenty of victims for "Bones."
When Patrick and friends
find a body buried in the basement, they don't scurry off to the police.
"Call the police, and you don't get a permit," he says. Smart guys. They
already know how bureaucracy works. Like the "Scream" trilogy, which parodied
horror films so well that it was later parodied itself in "Scary Movie,"
"Bones" has plenty of humor mixed in with blood and gore.
The one-liners come quick.
After a resurrected Bones beheads one of the men who killed him, the talking
head says, "I killed you, you killed me. We're even. Why do you have to
get all metaphysical on me?"
"Bones" features a predominantly
African-American cast. As Bones, rap star Snoop Dogg is cool, calm and
charismatic. He speaks in his distinctive style, familiar to fans of his
music. His soulful eyes soak in the action, but he moves to his own rhythmic
pace.
His love interest is played
by the ageless Pam Grier, who seamlessly segues from a foxy 30-year-old
to a slightly off-kilter 50-ish mom still enamored of Bones.
On the day Bones was killed,
she read his palm and predicted his death: "There's a line across your
lifeline," she says. Bones smoothly replies, "Must be my clothesline."
Fans of "The Pretender"
will have a difficult time recognizing handsome Michael T. Weiss as the
corrupt, corpulent cop Lupovich. This distasteful, lazy officer enjoys
eating as much as he does collecting money from his benefactors, and lives
by the motto, "Four can keep a secret if three are dead."
The plot isn't particularly
engrossing and it's not even really that scary. But the film is funny and
gross. And that's what movies like "Bones" are all about.
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