Shotta's gangsters

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Movie
German title Shotta's gangsters
Original title Shottas
Country of production Jamaica
original language English
Publishing year 2002
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Cess Silvera
script Cess Silvera
production Wyclef Jean
music Stephen Marley
camera Carlos Zayas
cut Danny Sapphires
occupation

Shottas Gangster (Original title: Shottas ) is a Jamaican independent thriller directed by Cess Silvera from 2002. In this film, the musician Wyclef Jean made his debut as a producer and actor. Shottas is a Jamaican slang expression that translates as "gangster".

action

Biggs and Wayne grew up poor boys on the streets of Kingston, Jamaica and turned criminals at an early age. As children, they attacked a truck driver with a gun. With the looted money they get forged passports and flee to the USA, to Miami . There they successfully continue their criminal activities until Wayne is deported. Biggs, however, remains in Miami and slowly rises to the top of the underworld there until he is deported to Jamaica again. There he meets Wayne again, who now runs a criminal organization that extorts protection money from Jamaican shopkeepers. An ambitious politician wants to cut the crime rate in Kingston to get more votes, so he wants to crush Wayne's organization. After a shootout with the police, Biggs and Wayne set off for Miami again, seeing no more opportunities for themselves in Jamaica. They also take their friend, Mad Max, with them. In Miami they have to quickly realize that the situation there has changed, a gangster named Teddy Bruck Shot is now in power. The three Jamaicans still do their illegal business such as drug trafficking or extortion and that with great success. Teddy sees his position as boss of the underworld endangered and sends his henchmen to the estate of the three Jamaicans. This leads to a shootout in which Wayne is killed and Mad Max is wounded. After Biggs kills the attackers, he takes Mad Max to the hospital and then drives to Teddy, killing him, his men and his wife. Biggs steals all of Teddy's savings and takes a boat to Los Angeles to live there in peace.

Reviews

The low budget production (budget: $ 200,000) was valued mixed. On rottentomatoes.com the film was rated as “rotten” with a rating of only 13%, while the audience rating is 90%. The imdb rating is also comparatively average at 5.7.

The reggae portal "Raggaenode.de" rated the film only negatively:

“The rental company makes comparisons with the Yard classic“ The Harder They Come ”. The only thing that the “action drama” (sic) “Shottas - Gangster” has in common with this pearl of Jamaican cinemas is the Jamaican ghetto theme in the broadest sense. Otherwise Ky-Mani Marley, Spragga Benz and Wyclef Jean, among others, shoot each other with excessive facial play and mostly ridiculously crooked boom through the story of a “thug life”, which can hardly be beaten in terms of dramaturgy. Protagonist and "Don Dadda" Biggs (played by Ky-Mani Marley, who for some reason can't even get his eyelids up in the final shoot-out scene) mixes with his friends first Jamaica and then Miami in fast motion - very cool and extremely brutal. Speed ​​up, then transfigured to the sounds of Jacob Miller's “Disciplined Child” (!) And gawking into the sunset as the only survivor. The critical consideration that the viewer is waiting for remains absent. Framed by an even passable soundtrack and spiced with lots of hip cuts and tracking shots, the entire length of the film doesn't get over the dramaturgy and message of a highly stereotypical MTV HipHop clip. Especially since women in their few scenes are shown here only as big-breasted sex objects to match the overall picture and bling-bling and outrageously expensive cars are staged in a disgusting style. In “Shottas” the central social theme of Jamaica - the violence in the ghettos of Jamaica - was completely given away and on the contrary even glorified. It doesn't help if the director and actor in the bonus material assure in a lowered voice that this reflects reality and that they all know such fates from their immediate surroundings. What could have become an important film turned into a dangerous film. "

- www.reggaenode.de

Soundtrack

The soundtrack almost exclusively contains songs from the reggae genre, some by Bob Marley or his sons:

Web links