HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING DRUGS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Satire used as both Advocacy and History.

How To Make Money Selling Drugs (2013) ***
Dir. Matthew Cooke
Starring: Barry Cooper, Freeway Rick Ross, Brian O’Dea, Bobby Carlton, David Simon, 50 Cent, Eminem, Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A day doesn't go by when I can't help but shake my head over how utterly moronic America seems. Its founding principles seem to be diametrically opposed to the actual manner in which the country is continually driven by the not-so-secret needs of its wealthiest few and how easily the vast majority of its populace accepts the country's endless human rights violations, lack of freedoms and the exploitation of the basic tenets of democracy.

It is a country that's essentially on the verge of being little more than a Third World Nation run by puppets and populated with a majority of boobs exploited for their willing acceptance of a system that continues to dumb them ever-downwards by any means necessary. The country's seemingly endless war-mongering - most notably its idiotic War on Terror - is matched by its War On Drugs.

Matthew Cooke's clever, funny and mildly subversive documentary How To Make Money Selling Drugs delivers a step-by-step, blow-by-blow how-to guide on the ins and outs of hawking marijuana and cocaine (and by extension, pretty much any illicit drug). Replete with all manner of flashy TV-styled cutting, sound effects and on-screen title cards, it is - on its surface - a fascinating look at how some of the best in the "business" ply (or have plied) their illicit trade and yielded oodles of cash. These individuals run the gamut of street dealers all the way up to cartel-leaders and through their experiences we learn the perils and pitfalls as much as we learn the ways to achieve success.

Some of the more seemingly successful practitioners of the trade, Barry Cooper, Freeway Rick Ross and Brian O’Dea are all incredibly open and informative as they detail their how-to approaches. These guys are on-camera, but off camera (with disguised voices) or in front of the camera (in disguise and/or with pseudonyms) we get additional tips. If we were to follow their advice, the movie suggests that we too can make ourselves a decent living.

Luckily, the film also presents these same subjects' downfalls (occasional or permanent) and some of it seems so convincing that we feel like IF we could avoid some of the mistakes made that led to incarceration, we could hit dizzying heights of financial success without penalty. This, of course, is tempered by reality and it's eventually obvious that selling drugs IS indeed a losing game - not because it's wrong, immoral or criminal (which to varying degrees it is and/or can be), but because the Status Quo has stacked the deck to allow it AND then deny/destroy it - all for personal gain at the political level.

In addition to focusing upon several real-life dealers, the picture also presents numerous law enforcement officials - cops, DEA agents, lawyers and judiciary. Their presence confirms and presents the ease with which one can make money selling drugs, but also how those on the other side of the coin make their "collars" - none of them, not surprisingly, all that imaginative. The law uses a variety of snitches, but also employs threats, intimidation, entrapment and even just plain planting drugs on suspected dealers.

One of the more interesting subjects is Bobby Carlton an ex-cop who details every single manner in which he willingly and even gleefully entrapped people. Astoundingly, the film follows his story to a point where he joins the "other side" and becomes an activist and advocate for the rights of dealers to the point where he is now forced to live in self-imposed exile to escape persecution by American law enforcement officials who frown up his change of heart and activities associated with it.

The filmmakers also present a wide variety of celebrity interviews - those who have dealt and/or used drugs to those who are fighting against the archaic and immoral anti-drug laws and campaigns. Interviews with the "real thing" former dealers and/or users include the stellar likes of 50-cent and Eminem. Celebrity activists include Little Mrs. Commitment herself Susan Sarandon and everyone's favourite wacko advocate Woody Harrelson.

Right from the start of the film, there's a subtle and eventually, not-so-subtle subtext which provides both a history of America's War On Drugs and exposes the utter hypocrisy of it. In so doing, the movie cleverly uses its how-to guide as a plea for saner American approaches to the "Drug Problem" - a problem that seems manufactured by the government with its Draconian approaches to the War On Drugs - so much so that David Simon, the creator of hit series The Wire, points out the irony that law enforcement agents and agencies (including straight-up cops themselves) place so much emphasis on how to entrap dealers that good, old-fashioned police work goes the way of the Dodo (to the detriment of many other serious crimes never being properly solved).

The movie cleverly manipulates itself to deliver one poignant and often heartbreaking sequence after another that details the fall of the aforementioned "criminals" in addition to those who are not dealers at all, but are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dealers all seem to be at peace with the risks of the profession, but those caught up in the trade innocently and inadvertently suffer from wrongful arrest, incarceration and what often seem like utterly unconstitutional, if not illegal (and certainly immoral) raids, arrests and incarcerations.

At the end of the day, we have a film which uses a satirical approach to its subject to act as a plea for a saner approach to drugs and both the use and sales of said hallucinogens. Some of the satire is of the Lite persuasion and while at times, I might have preferred an even more subversive approach to the subject, it doesn't take away from the fact that this is yet another convincing and important expose of America's hypocrisy - not just in terms of drugs, but by extension, everything.

"How To Make Money Selling Drugs" is currently in theatrical release via Berkshire Axis Media.

ILL MANORS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - PlanB rapper Ben Drew's kitchen-sink crime drama a shocker.

Ill Manors (2012) ****
Dir. Ben Drew
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Ed Skrein, Natalie Press, Anouska Mond, Lee Allen, Keef Coggins, Ryan De La Cruz, Nick Sagar

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Welcome to East End London. The manors are indeed, ill. Check it out:

A little boy of mixed race is left alone with a racist skinhead as his Mom gets porked by a gangster. The child's face gets mutilated by the skinhead. Children must be scarred forever to remind them and others how low their place in the world is.

A little boy wants to deal. He's 13. He's told to beat the shit out of his friend. He needs to prove his potential, his loyalty, his willingness to do anything it takes to build his street cred. He wants respect, He wants to be made. He does what he's told in the most horrendously brutal manner possible.

Two young men accuse a teenaged crack whore of losing a cel phone and she's forced into a harrowing night wherein she must raise 1000 big ones by offering herself to one john after another at 20 smackers-a-pop. These are not ordinary johns. She's led to every all night falafel joint, convenience store and other such establishments - staffed by poor new immigrants with their own unique cultural views on women - and specifically whores.

A young dealer and an innocent woman at the wrong place at the wrong time are gunned down in cold blood.

A young man is forced at gunpoint to carve up another.

A trembling, squealing young man has a gun shoved into his face and ordered to face death as a man.

A sex slave and her baby escape from Russian pimps, but she's tracked down pronto and forced to abandon her baby in a subway train. The baby winds up in the hands of a street thug. One things leads to another and the baby is sold. Eventually we see it tossed from a window.

Ben Drew, the UK rapper AKA Plan B has made a fine feature film debut with Ill Manors. Brits are notorious and especially adept at shoving our faces into kitchen sinks, toilet bowls and garbage cans. It's a fine tradition that really hit its stride during the early 1960s during the British New Wave period of "Angry Young Man" pictures.

UK has delivered any number of crime melodramas in recent years that the heroes of the halcyon New Wave days like Richard Burton, Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Laurence Harvey, et all - spewing anger and pure venom, would just as easily have been at home in.

Here though, Drew populates his sprawling time-and-place-concentrated Ill Manors with a mix of professional and non-professional actors. A superb combination of brilliantly designed/chosen studio sets and locations allows Drew to place us completely in the palms of his cinematically virgin, though highly evocative hands. It's impossible to take one's eyes off the screen.

It's a cross between Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets in East End London and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (if that film had REAL balls and wasn't so overtly "manufactured"). Grit, grime and blood mingle perfectly to create a portrait of violence and despair that for some might feel slightly derivative, but in actual fact, is blessed with a powerful new filmmaking voice.

Drew's lens whips about the environs and proceedings with an eye for detail. At times, the suspense during tension-filled criminal activity is unbearable. When violence hits us, Drew might as well be slamming a shovel in our faces.

This, however, is no sloppy, herky-jerky, rag-tag affair. Compositions are effectively appropriate to the dramatic action. Most chillingly is how subtly Drew draws our eyes to key implements of death and destruction - guns, blades, crack bowls, etc/. As such, his staging/blocking and camera directives are so visionary and proficient that often single shots can have us shuddering.

The structure of the film revolves around several rap songs which drew wrote and performed. He cuts them like extremely sophisticated music videos to provide background, back story and street philosophy.

Amidst the chaos and criminal activity, Drew roots his tale in humanity. He delivers a movie where some of the most despicable actions lead to greater depth of understanding. Given the grim, bleak, violent reality of this world he never provides easy answers and never ties up his narratives into neat bows, but we do experience redemption and through the haze of crack smoke and the blood that feels like it's being splashed in our eyes, we even get a glimmer of hope.

But, just a glimmer. For the wasted, forgotten and/or reviled young men and women of this world, there are few real choices. They're the true progeny of Margaret Thatcher. They live, not for the future, but for the moment.

It's a film that's ultimately very moving and no matter how despicable the actions of its protagonists, Drew never forgets to remind us how fallible we are as a species and that for some, choices - no matter hpw bad - are the only power many of our kids have.

As grippingly as the film forces us to watch, it just as easily forces us not to forget. Once humanity gets to a point of collective avoidance then good and bad become one.

That's even scarier shit.

"Ill Manors" is in theatrical release and also available through the usual home entertainment venues via Berkshire Axis Media. In Toronto it's playing around the corner from one of our very own Ill Manors at the Yonge and Dundas cinema.

ILL MANORS - TIFF 2012 - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Ill Manors (2012) ****
Dir. Ben Drew
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Ed Skrein, Natalie Press, Anouska Mond, Lee Allen, Keef Coggins, Ryan De La Cruz, Nick Sagar

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Welcome to East End London. The manors are indeed, ill. Check it out:

A little boy of mixed race is left alone with a racist skinhead as his Mom gets porked by a gangster. The child's face gets mutilated by the skinhead. Children must be scarred forever to remind them and others how low their place in the world is.

A little boy wants to deal. He's 13. He's told to beat the shit out of his friend. He needs to prove his potential, his loyalty, his willingness to do anything it takes to build his street cred. He wants respect, He wants to be made. He does what he's told in the most horrendously brutal manner possible.

Two young men accuse a teenaged crack whore of losing a cel phone and she's forced into a harrowing night wherein she must raise 1000 big ones by offering herself to one john after another at 20 smackers-a-pop. These are not ordinary johns. She's led to every all night falafel joint, convenience store and other such establishments - staffed by poor new immigrants with their own unique cultural views on women - and specifically whores.

A young dealer and an innocent woman at the wrong place at the wrong time are gunned down in cold blood.

A young man is forced at gunpoint to carve up another.

A trembling, squealing young man has a gun shoved into his face and ordered to face death as a man.

A sex slave and her baby escape from Russian pimps, but she's tracked down pronto and forced to abandon her baby in a subway train. The baby winds up in the hands of a street thug. One things leads to another and the baby is sold. Eventually we see it tossed from a window.

Ben Drew, the UK rapper AKA Plan B has made a fine feature film debut with Ill Manors. Brits are notorious and especially adept at shoving our faces into kitchen sinks, toilet bowls and garbage cans. It's a fine tradition that really hit its stride during the early 1960s during the British New Wave period of "Angry Young Man" pictures.

UK has delivered any number of crime melodramas in recent years that the heroes of the halcyon New Wave days like Richard Burton, Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Laurence Harvey, et all - spewing anger and pure venom, would just as easily have been at home in.

Here though, Drew populates his sprawling time-and-place-concentrated Ill Manors with a mix of professional and non-professional actors. A superb combination of brilliantly designed/chosen studio sets and locations allows Drew to place us completely in the palms of his cinematically virgin, though highly evocative hands. It's impossible to take one's eyes off the screen.

It's a cross between Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets in East End London and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (if that film had REAL balls and wasn't so overtly "manufactured"). Grit, grime and blood mingle perfectly to create a portrait of violence and despair that for some might feel slightly derivative, but in actual fact, is blessed with a powerful new filmmaking voice.

Drew's lens whips about the environs and proceedings with an eye for detail. At times, the suspense during tension-filled criminal activity is unbearable. When violence hits us, Drew might as well be slamming a shovel in our faces.

This, however, is no sloppy, herky-jerky, rag-tag affair. Compositions are effectively appropriate to the dramatic action. Most chillingly is how subtly Drew draws our eyes to key implements of death and destruction - guns, blades, crack bowls, etc/. As such, his staging/blocking and camera directives are so visionary and proficient that often single shots can have us shuddering.

The structure of the film revolves around several rap songs which drew wrote and performed. He cuts them like extremely sophisticated music videos to provide background, back story and street philosophy.

Amidst the chaos and criminal activity, Drew roots his tale in humanity. He delivers a movie where some of the most despicable actions lead to greater depth of understanding. Given the grim, bleak, violent reality of this world he never provides easy answers and never ties up his narratives into neat bows, but we do experience redemption and through the haze of crack smoke and the blood that feels like it's being splashed in our eyes, we even get a glimmer of hope.

But, just a glimmer. For the wasted, forgotten and/or reviled young men and women of this world, there are few real choices. They're the true progeny of Margaret Thatcher. They live, not for the future, but for the moment.

It's a film that's ultimately very moving and no matter how despicable the actions of its protagonists, Drew never forgets to remind us how fallible we are as a species and that for some, choices - no matter hpw bad - are the only power many of our kids have.

As grippingly as the film forces us to watch, it just as easily forces us not to forget. Once humanity gets to a point of collective avoidance then good and bad become one.

That's even scarier shit.

"Ill Manors" via Berkshire Axis Media premieres at TIFF 2012.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING DRUGS - TIFF 2012 - Review By Greg Klymkiw

How To Make Money Selling Drugs (2013) ***
Dir. Matthew Cooke
Starring: Barry Cooper, Freeway Rick Ross, Brian O’Dea, Bobby Carlton, David Simon, 50 Cent, Eminem, Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A day doesn't go by when I can't help but shake my head over how utterly moronic America seems. Its founding principles seem to be diametrically opposed to the actual manner in which the country is continually driven by the not-so-secret needs of its wealthiest few and how easily the vast majority of its populace accepts the country's endless human rights violations, lack of freedoms and the exploitation of the basic tenets of democracy.

It is a country that's essentially on the verge of being little more than a Third World Nation run by puppets and populated with a majority of boobs exploited for their willing acceptance of a system that continues to dumb them ever-downwards by any means necessary. The country's seemingly endless war-mongering - most notably its idiotic War on Terror - is matched by its War On Drugs.

Matthew Cooke's clever, funny and mildly subversive documentary How To Make Money Selling Drugs delivers a step-by-step, blow-by-blow how-to guide on the ins and outs of hawking marijuana and cocaine (and by extension, pretty much any illicit drug). Replete with all manner of flashy TV-styled cutting, sound effects and on-screen title cards, it is - on its surface - a fascinating look at how some of the best in the "business" ply (or have plied) their illicit trade and yielded oodles of cash. These individuals run the gamut of street dealers all the way up to cartel-leaders and through their experiences we learn the perils and pitfalls as much as we learn the ways to achieve success.

Some of the more seemingly successful practitioners of the trade, Barry Cooper, Freeway Rick Ross and Brian O’Dea are all incredibly open and informative as they detail their how-to approaches. These guys are on-camera, but off camera (with disguised voices) or in front of the camera (in disguise and/or with pseudonyms) we get additional tips. If we were to follow their advice, the movie suggests that we too can make ourselves a decent living.

Luckily, the film also presents these same subjects' downfalls (occasional or permanent) and some of it seems so convincing that we feel like IF we could avoid some of the mistakes made that led to incarceration, we could hit dizzying heights of financial success without penalty. This, of course, is tempered by reality and it's eventually obvious that selling drugs IS indeed a losing game - not because it's wrong, immoral or criminal (which to varying degrees it is and/or can be), but because the Status Quo has stacked the deck to allow it AND then deny/destroy it - all for personal gain at the political level.

In addition to focusing upon several real-life dealers, the picture also presents numerous law enforcement officials - cops, DEA agents, lawyers and judiciary. Their presence confirms and presents the ease with which one can make money selling drugs, but also how those on the other side of the coin make their "collars" - none of them, not surprisingly, all that imaginative. The law uses a variety of snitches, but also employs threats, intimidation, entrapment and even just plain planting drugs on suspected dealers.

One of the more interesting subjects is Bobby Carlton an ex-cop who details every single manner in which he willingly and even gleefully entrapped people. Astoundingly, the film follows his story to a point where he joins the "other side" and becomes an activist and advocate for the rights of dealers to the point where he is now forced to live in self-imposed exile to escape persecution by American law enforcement officials who frown up his change of heart and activities associated with it.

The filmmakers also present a wide variety of celebrity interviews - those who have dealt and/or used drugs to those who are fighting against the archaic and immoral anti-drug laws and campaigns. Interviews with the "real thing" former dealers and/or users include the stellar likes of 50-cent and Eminem. Celebrity activists include Little Mrs. Commitment herself Susan Sarandon and everyone's favourite wacko advocate Woody Harrelson.

Right from the start of the film, there's a subtle and eventually, not-so-subtle subtext which provides both a history of America's War On Drugs and exposes the utter hypocrisy of it. In so doing, the movie cleverly uses its how-to guide as a plea for saner American approaches to the "Drug Problem" - a problem that seems manufactured by the government with its Draconian approaches to the War On Drugs - so much so that David Simon, the creator of hit series The Wire, points out the irony that law enforcement agents and agencies (including straight-up cops themselves) place so much emphasis on how to entrap dealers that good, old-fashioned police work goes the way of the Dodo (to the detriment of many other serious crimes never being properly solved).

The movie cleverly manipulates itself to deliver one poignant and often heartbreaking sequence after another that details the fall of the aforementioned "criminals" in addition to those who are not dealers at all, but are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dealers all seem to be at peace with the risks of the profession, but those caught up in the trade innocently and inadvertently suffer from wrongful arrest, incarceration and what often seem like utterly unconstitutional, if not illegal (and certainly immoral) raids, arrests and incarcerations.

At the end of the day, we have a film which uses a satirical approach to its subject to act as a plea for a saner approach to drugs and both the use and sales of said hallucinogens. Some of the satire is of the Lite persuasion and while at times, I might have preferred an even more subversive approach to the subject, it doesn't take away from the fact that this is yet another convincing and important expose of America's hypocrisy - not just in terms of drugs, but by extension, everything.

"How To Make Money Selling Drugs" via Berkshire Axis Media premieres at TIFF 2012.